Death Wish
by ihonestlydontknow
Summary: Watanuki has enough problems to deal with: his blood attracts spirits who want to eat him and he works for an enigmatic witch who makes crazy demands. Now he has to deal with Yuuko's bratty amnesiac 'guest'. What's next? Knowing Yuuko, nothing pleasant.
1. Unending Snow

1: Unending Snow

"Snow!"

"Snow!"

Twin voices excitedly exclaimed the arrival of the most obvious sign of winter's presence. Maru and Moro clasped hands and spun round and round as pure white flakes fell around them. Yuuko said nothing, taking another sip of her sake. "It is quite early this year," she murmured to Mokona.

"Yup." Her small, round companion agreed, as he also gulped his alcohol.

"Unusually early… unnaturally early."

"There's snow on the ground!"

"There's snow falling through the air!"

Yuuko watched Maru and Moro as they continued whatever it was they were doing, contemplating the state of things. After a moment, she held her hand out beyond the shelter of the overhang, catching one of the fragile little sculptures.

"We can make snowmen!"

"We can make snowballs!"

Finally, Yuuko said to Mokona, "Tomorrow, we'll have Watanuki clean out a room."

"Why, mistress?"

"Why a new room, mistress?" Maru and Moro had stopped their game at those words.

The Dimentional Witch smiled. "We're going to have a visitor." She stood up, and walked inside her shop. The snowflake in her hand still hadn't melted.

A/N:

Yes, it's very short, and I apologize. The chapters will, however, be longer eventually, I assure you.

Please review, and feel free to guess who the guest is. Its probably obvious, though.

Disclaimer: Not only am I four women at once, I am also Tite Kubo! Yes! I AM five people at once, and I own both xxxHolic, AND Bleach! Either you need to be locked up, or I do.


	2. Search

2: Search

The Gotei 13 had lost another captain. Literally lost.

Hitsugaya-taicho had simply disappeared off the map, and what seemed like half of Seireitei were trying to find him. Aizen was the main suspect, even though the snowy little captain had been in the real world when he had vanished. One minute he had been fighting, then, a flash-step later, he was gone without a trace.

Matsumoto-fukutaicho had to be practically tied to her bed for her to stay in the Fourth Division. She refused to stay, even though she had received a wound from a particularly persistent Hollow while she had still been frozen is shock over her captain's disappearance, and only Unohana-taicho's gentile, but still somehow… _persuasive_… orders stopped the worried underling from looking for her captain.

Two days after Hitsugaya-taicho went missing, Matsumoto was released from the Fourth Division. Half a day after that, she was in the Real World, combing the place she had last seen her captain for clues to his whereabouts. Urahara Kisuke found her, flat out on the ground, fast asleep.

A/N: Yes, it's a shorter chapter then last time, but before you start throwing full wine bottles at your computer screen I have one thing to say: I'm setting the scene. Next Monday, I swear, the chapter will be much longer. Much, much longer.

Not that there's really many people who really care. No, I'm not being bitter about how few people care enough about my story to review at alllllll. Nope. (REVIEW PLEASE! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO LECTURE ME ABOUT SOMETHING!)

By the way, I'm not only five people at once, (CLAMP and Tite Kubo) but I am publishing this story(not manga, story. In English, I might add) on a site that brings me no financial benefits. Yep, totally something five-authors-in-one-person would do. No question about it.


	3. Lost

3: Lost

"So, do you know when this guest is coming?" Doumeki asked, grabbing one of the bento that Watanuki had made.

"No, Yuuko-san didn't tell me anything. They could come today, or a month from now." It was a testament to how tired and preoccupied the young man was that he didn't flail at Doumeki for taking a bento without asking.

"I'm sure Yuuko-san's guest will be here soon," Himawari said. "She always gets everything done just in time."

"Aah, Himawari-chan is right!" Watanuki gushed, turning to putty like he always did at the girl's words.

"Mm-hm!" she nodded, smiling. "Yuuko-san always has a reason for what she does, right?"

* * *

After bidding Himawari a cheery good-bye, and grumbling at Doumeki, (or to himself. No one can really tell with that kid) Watanuki headed to Yuuko's shop to work. He hoped she wouldn't be making any weird requests like she had been doing over the past few days, but when it came to Yuuko, he knew that was practically an impossibility. Yuuko _always_ made weird requests. Always. It was just something he had learned to live with while he worked for the so-called 'Dimensional Witch.' The latest weird order had been to bring anyone who seemed surprised he could see them to the shop. This probably meant that this person was a spirit. He hoped that he wouldn't run into any other spirits until he met this person, and had done as Yuuko asked.

Apparently, he wasn't so lucky. Staggering under the weight of a gross, blobby spirit, he made his painstaking way to Yuuko's shop, hoping that he could make it to the fence before he was eaten, though his chances really weren't looking that good.

Suddenly, the grotesque spirit left him, making a strange frightened-sounding whine. Watanuki looked up to see a strange white-haired child staring at him. He shivered. The air was much colder here, and heavier, somehow.

"I'm glad it left." Watanuki looked up at the kid. On closer inspection, the kid's white hair wasn't the only thing weird about him. He was dressed in black clothes that had been ripped up so much you could hardly tell what they had originally been. In the boy's hand, he clutched a piece of fabric- white on one side, turquoise on the other. He looked like he had been through the wringer. Not only were his clothes tattered, his skin was too. Countless little cuts and scrapes had left little trails of dried blood on his skin, and just above his left temple, in stark contrast to his white hair, sat a mass of dried blood. "It was giving me a weird feeling."

"Did you say that?" Watanuki asked the kid eventually. Well, it was better than 'what the hell happened to you? You look like you were pulled through a combine harvester'.

The kid just looked at him wearily.

"I'm talking to you, kid," Watanuki said after a while. He hated being ignored.

"Don't call me kid!" Growled the little white haired… kid. He seemed ready to come at Watanuki and pound him into the dirt for the perceived insult, but stopped as a sudden expression of shock washed over his face. "You… you can see me?"

Was this kid the person Yuuko had meant? Watanuki wondered. He nodded. "Yeah, I can see you. And hear you. Did you say-"

"Your not supposed to see me," the injured boy said, interrupting Watanuki. He seemed angry about this. Or frustrated.

"Why?" Watanuki countered. "Am I not supposed to?" Was the kid a spirit or something?

"I- I don't know."

"Er…" This was awkward. Did the kid have some kind of amnesia? Did spirits get amnesia? "Are you…" he paused. 'Are you lost' seemed slightly insulting for someone like this kid, who seemed to radiate pride. If Watanuki insulted him, it was likely he wouldn't come to the shop, and that would be a bad thing. At least, he assumed it was a bad thing. "Do you have anywhere you need to be?"

"Yes." The answer was immediate, firm, and commanding. The kid was 110% sure about this.

"Where?"

The assuredness that the kid had projected deflated like a punctured balloon. "I… don't know. I have to _be_ somewhere, doing _something_, or else it will never get done! I have to do all the work! Always!" He had been shouting indignantly, but deflated once more. "But I don't know what it is, or where I have to go to do it!"

This was the perfect chance. "I know someone who could help you," Watanuki said.

"Who?"

"She owns a shop, and she grants wishes. She can help you. Please let me take you to her," Watanuki said, babbling a little because he didn't really know what to tell the kid. He held his breath as he waited for the kid to answer.

Finally, the kid nodded his ascent, and Watanuki exhaled loudly, earning him a weird look from everybody around him. He smiled at the kid. "I'm glad," he said. "Please follow me."

* * *

Maru and Moro greeted them at the shop's entrance.

"Come in," they chorused. "Mistress is waiting for you."

The white-haired kid glared at Watanuki, as if this suspiciousness was his fault. "Sorry," Watanuki said in apology, "I know it seems weird, but don't worry, please." For a moment, it seemed that the amnesiac would walk out of the shop, however, he continued to follow Yuuko's underlings through the shop.

"Aah, so he's finally arrived," the Witch herself said in greeting.

"You were expecting me? Why?" The kid raised a white eyebrow.

Yuuko exhaled the lungful of smoke she had inhaled from her wood and silver pipe. "What shall we call you?" she asked instead, re-directing the kid's question.

"Huh?" Puzzled, the kid frowned at Yuuko.

"Well, I can't do business with you calling you 'kid,' now can I," Yuuko purred.

Watanuki wanted to shout 'Be careful! It's a trap! Don't tell her your real name! She'll get you in her clutches!' but two things stopped him. The kid probably didn't remember his real name, considering how he was acting, and had Watanuki said those things, they probably would have earned him a smack from Yuuko-san for his talk about 'clutches.'

"I… my name is…" the white-haired boy's scowl grew even more pronounced as he tried in vein to remember his own name. "Call me… call me Taicho."

"Taicho?" He couldn't help it, he really couldn't. The word just slipped out. Why would the kid want to be called 'Captain'? Unfortunately, his disbelieving tone annoyed the kid, and earned him an icy glare.

"Yes, Taicho. Call me Taicho."

"Ok, ok," Watanuki said, trying to placate the angry spirit-kid. "Just making sure… heh." 'Don't hurt me, please!' was the obvious message. Watanuki had learned to be cautious of things that other people couldn't see- spirits, like this kid seemed to be- and a lifetime of caution was hardly going to be thrown out the window just because he was working for someone else who could see them- or most of them. Especially since he was working for Yuuko-san. Sure, he was seeing fewer spirits, (because he was spending time with Doumeki, but he conveniently ignored this fact) but some of the ones he was seeing now were more powerful and more likely to eat him.

"Taicho it is, then," Yuuko declared. "So, Taicho, why have you come to my shop?"

The white-haired spirit frowned. "I… I'm not sure. I woke up on a street. This kid-" here he jerked his thumb at Watanuki, "Was coming my way with this huge globby thing on him."

Here Yuuko looked up at Watanuki, raising an eyebrow. "It was one of those big spirits. The kind that leave when I touch the fence," he explained, conveniently leaving out the fact that he had been too far away from the fence for it to have been any help. He didn't want Yuuko to order him to ask Doumeki to escort him from school to work everyday, or something like that.

"Don't get lazy and let your guard down just because your working for me, Watanuki-kun," Yuuko-san said without looking at him. "If you got eaten, it would be hard for me to find someone else I can keep around as long as you to work around here."

"ANYway," Taicho continued, looking miffed at the interruption. "When the kid gets closer to me, the big ooze-spirit leaves, and then the kid who can see me invites me to your shop. And that's it. That's why I'm here."

Watanuki waited for Yuuko to tell the kid that he was there, in fact, to get his wish granted, but the correction never came. Yuuko took another drag of her pipe, exhaled and said, "Do you have a place to stay?"

Taicho thought for a moment, trying to recall if he had a place to stay or not. "… No. I don't."

"You could stay here, for a price," Yuuko offered. Watanuki held his breath. This wasn't business as usual, and shouldn't be as intense, but it might as well have been Yuuko dangling a person's wish in front of their face instead of just offering a place to stay. Moro and Maru watched silently as the transaction happened.

"I know I don't have money."

"Did I say anything about money?" Yuuko smiled. "No, you will give me payment in a different way, and will do so as long as you choose to stay in this shop. What do you say?"

"… Fine."

"Excellent!" Yuuko squealed. "Taicho, your payment will be helping Watanuki, except in the kitchen. In everything else, you will aid him. That will be your payment," she declared. "But first… Watanuki, show our guest to the bath, so he can get cleaned up."

* * *

"That kid is so weird!" Watanuki said as he returned from showing Taicho around. "How long did you let the bath sit there? The water was freezing by the time we got there? But, anyway, we get to the bath, and the water's freezing, and he says 'it's fine.' How is it fine? The whole ROOM was cold, Yuuko-san! What's up with that?"

"He liked it, didn't he?" Yuuko grinned from across the room

"And what's with your attitude?" Watanuki demanded.

"What?" Yuuko pulled an innocent-looking face.

"Don't give me that. Why are you being so nice to him? You didn't pull any of those creepy stunts you usually do. And why didn't you offer to grant his wish like you do with everybody else?"

"The price for granting him a wish would be too high for him right now, and when he can afford to pay, I wouldn't accept payment. Not that he'd be willing to consider that payment." Yuuko explained, though that explanation raised as many questions as it answered.

"What do you mean? Why? Don't you try to get payment from everyone you meet?"

The witch picked up on the insinuation. "I'm not greedy! How can you think that?" Yuuko asked, mock sorrow in her voice. "You wound me, Watanuki-kun, you really do… How could you say such things about me?"

"Maybe because they're true?" Watanuki grumbled. "I mean, I seems that everyone you come across you try to get in your clutches."

"Again with this 'clutches' talk! Really, Watanuki-kun!"

"Watanuki's in her clutches, Watanuki's in her clutches!"

"Clutches, clutches!" Maru and Moro chanted as the danced through the room on whatever strange errand or whim.

"What's the matter with him, anyway?" Watanuki asked, curious despite himself. "Does he have amnesia because he hit his head, or something? Like in soap operas?"

Yuuko's mood shifted from playful to contemplative as Watanuki waited for the answer. "He has lost the memories that tell him who he is, in as well as a part of his soul, but not because of the injury on his head, though that may have aided it."

"His soul?" Watanuki gulped. "Do you mean his_ soul_ soul? Or… what was it you said… something valuable to him?"

"Yes."

"'Yes' wha-" Mokona, bored with this game of question-and-answer, decided to attach itself to Watanuki's head.

"Sake! Sake! Time for sake!"

"What a wonderful idea, Mokonka! Watanuki, bring the sake and some snacks!" Yuuko demanded from her couch.

"It's too early!" Watanuki protested, though he still started in the direction of the kitchen. "And you! Get off my head!" He grabbed Monoka, and tossed it at Yuuko.

"Watanuki-kun," his employer (slave-driver) called as he left the room, "When you're finished, get the iodine."

"Oh," Watanuki paused, and he recalled guiltily that Yuuko's newest customer had been hurt. "Right."

Yuuko must have heard the worry in his voice because she called after him, "Don't worry about Taicho. Those little scrapes won't slow him down."

"And the cut on his head?"

"That is what the iodine is for." She blew smoke at him. "Quit being a worry wart, Watanuki-kun. Head wounds always bleed heavily. If it were a serious injury, he'd be dead by now. Now it's time for sake!"

* * *

Taicho was glad to be alone, and he soon took advantage of the bath that had been readied for him. He was grateful, even if he had no idea how that woman had known he was coming. Eagerly shedding tattered, bloodstained clothing that he had no memory of dirtying, he slipped into the bath.

It came as a shock to him that not only was the bath _cold_, but that he liked the cold. Had he always liked the cold? He liked the cold here and now, but had it always been so, or had he just acquired his affinity for low temperature? He didn't know; the past was a blur of grey.

Another thing he didn't know was how he'd gotten the numerous scars that were scattered across his body. Most were small, and faded, but there was one, large and new looking that sat on his right shoulder that worried him. It looked as though somebody had tried to cut his arm off, or maybe they had tried to get to his heart, but had gotten the wrong side of his body. Either way, the new, shiny scar didn't look like the person had any intention of letting him walk away from the encounter. Taicho wondered how he had survived. Had it happened at the same time he lost his memory? He couldn't remember. _And that was the problem._

He was startled out of his reverie when the two strange girls who had welcomed him to the shop opened the door. He let out a startled squawk, and sunk lower into the water, eliciting a giggle from the strange girls.

"Don't worry," the blue haired one giggled.

"We won't see anything," the other added, and they both closed their eyes.

"Mistress just wants you to know that there are fresh clothes for you," the blue-haired one said, pointing at a corner of the room, where there were clothes sitting there, folded nicely.

"Thank you," Taicho said politely, having raised his mouth above water level to talk to the pair. The just giggled again, and left, closing the door.

After the strange girls that gave him the creeps, he finished his bath, carefully washing around his various wounds; especially the large cut on his head. It wasn't a cut from a blade, as far as he could tell- he'd probably gotten it by hitting his head against something hard. And sharp. And it was bleeding again.

Despite his gentleness around the gash, the water had inevitably loosened the scab that had formed. Blood oozed sluggishly from the re-opened scrape. Taicho was vaguely worried. He didn't want to bleed all over, but he knew (somehow) that he wouldn't die from this head wound.

Taicho wandered out of the bathroom, trying to remember the way through the large house/shop to the room where that woman had been. Hopefully she would have bandages or something for his head. He met the boy who had brought him here as he was pondering which way to go in a hallway.

"Oh, it's you," the boy said. He was wearing a white apron-dress thing that had what looked like lace on the collar. "Did you actually like that bath? I don't know what Yuuko-san was thinking with that cold water-"

"I like the cold."

"Oh. Fine, then." The kid seemed miffed by his sharp response, but Taicho didn't really care. He didn't need the boy's approval. He was… He was what? Something important, he was sure. Or was he? Was he important? Or was he just a little brat that most people didn't like? His head started to feel fuzzy, and the world started going out of focus as he tried to chase after the shards of his identity, but the foray into his dark mind was interrupted by the boy in glasses.

"Yuuko-san wants to talk to you," he said. "Follow me, please."

* * *

A/N: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sorry it cut off so abruptly, but if I had gone on, I wouldn't have made deadline, so there you go. Some people –cough'narubleach'cough- were wondering why my story so far was so short. Well, those were set-up chapters. I had to set the tone, so that was kind of necessary. Yeah, I know. But, don't worry. This chapter is much longer. It's roughly 4.5 times longer than my entire fic so far. Yeah, it's longer.

Originally, it was roughly two pages or so shorter, but you can thank Reidluver for the (even) longer chapter. She wanted to see Hitsugaya and Watanuki interact. I re—read what I had written and found it quite lacking in any sort of people talking to people type scenes, so I went back and revamped this chapter, and I'm adding another chapter. (That one has will have those two. Don't worry) That means chapter four didn't exist before, and chapter five should be called chapter four and chapter six should be called chapter seven and so on. If anyone gets that reference, I'll… I dunno, write something that you want. Whatever you want. Seriously.

So, in closing, please review. I really like reviews, even if it's just a word or something. They make wonderful Christmas presents... Please, tell me what you think. I love hearing what people think. I know you people are reading my story- lets me spy on you (creepy much? I know, right?) And I'd greatly love more reviews. 'Either you love it, or you hate it. Anything between is pointless.'

(Real Life corner: Has anyone here seen the TV show _The Prisoner_?)


	4. Roulette

4: Roulette

Yuuko-san was a disturbingly good nurse Watanuki found out as he watched his employer apply the blood-colored disinfectant on Taicho's wound. Even while she smiled in a way that suggested that she knew everything, and teased the spirit, her hands expertly tended to the gash on her patient's head. The patient in question didn't _like_ being tended to, and insisted that he was _fine_, despite the spot on his head that would be staining his white hair pink were it not for Maru and Moro's well-timed dabbing with disinfected gauze. Watanuki, in an observer's spot, (not 'getting out of the way.' Like he would get _in_ the way.) found it strange that while Taicho would seem to flail and rant in protest, his head stayed relatively still, and his erratically moving arms never got in the way of whatever Yuuko-san was doing. It was slightly disconcerting.

Once Taicho's head was bandaged to Yuuko-san's satisfaction, she stood up, dusted off her hands, then declared, "This good a job deserves sake!"

"It's too early!" To Watanuki's surprise, his cry of outrage was echoed by Taicho. The short spirit had sprung to his feet at the declaration, and was standing there, glaring vehemently at Yuuko-san.

"You can't start drinking now!" he continued, "You'll get drunk and never get anything done! Then _I'll _be the one doing all of- of- of the-" Suddenly, Taicho was the center of a laser sharp focus.

Yuuko-san watched him with her smirking visage. "Of the what, Taicho? What won't get done?"

Taicho's pale face tinted pink as he fought for the next word. "The- the- AAARG! I CAN'T REMEMBER!" His legs seemed to collapse and he was suddenly on the floor, head in hands. "I can't remember."

Watanuki couldn't help but wonder if Yuuko-san had planed this. How many of the events around her had she planed out? Or was her belief in 'hitsuzen' so strong she was never surprised?

"Don't sweat it, Taicho," Yuuko-san said, kneeling down, placing a hand on his white hair. "You'll get it yet. Don't try _too_ hard, though, or you could land yourself in a coma!" Her serious face was gone, and the smirk was back. "And you have to remember _this,_ Taicho-kun: _I'm_ the one in charge here. You aren't my captain. And I say 'it's time for drinking'!"

Taicho's aggravated groan was muffled by his hands.

* * *

Watanuki had left the room to fetch the alcohol on Yuuko-san' orders. Taicho had been sitting on the floor, head in hands when he'd left. Now, the white haired youth was nowhere to be seen.

"Maru and Moro are giving him a tour," Yuuko-san told him before he'd had a chance to ask.

"Oh…" Watanuki placed the trey of sake and snakes on the table before Yuuko-san and began unloading it. "Um, Yuuko-san, what exactly _is_ Taicho? He's a spirit, right? Like Zaski-warashi or Ame-warachi?"

Pouring herself a cup of sake, the witch mulled the question over. "Taicho is a spirit; normal people can't see him, but I would not group him with Zaski-warashi, or Ame-warashi."

"So, you know what he is, then?"

"… You could say that."

Watanuki sighed as he picked up the trey. "You won't tell me anything until this is all over, won't you?"

"Don't be silly, Watanuki-kun. I might tell you three-quarters of the way through. Or maybe just _before_ the end," she laughed, knocking back a cup of sake. "Aaaaah, good choice, Watanuki-kun! I'll answer another question, if you have one."

"I-"

"I know you have one," she interrupted.

"Well, I-"

"You always do."

"If he d-"

"You can spit it out, now, Watanuki–kun! What's taking so long?"

Watanuki stood, fuming quietly at Yuuko-san. Was she just going to keep interrupting him? She'd said that she'd answer another question, but Yuuko-san could twist words however she liked to suit her intentions. One more try. "What will happen to Taicho if he doesn't get his memories back. Will he die like Sakura-san?"

"No." Watanuki breathed a sigh of relief. If they couldn't find Taicho's memories, the results wouldn't be too dire. "He still has some of his memories, unlike Sakura-chan, and unlike her he isn't human. No," she continued, "it won't be the amnesia that kills him, it'll be the cumulative effect."

Any relief in the room went out the window. "Wh-what?"

"An important part of his soul, along with all his memories of himself has been taken from him. Don't you think that would impact a person in a negative way, Watanuki-kun?"

"I-I guess so…"

"Exactly. Because of who and what he is, he has time to find himself."

"Before he dies?" Watanuki gulped.

"I suppose you could call it that." Yuuko-san poured herself another cup of sake. "But, now you've asked more than one question. Time to get back to work!"

* * *

Taicho's tour lasted a surprisingly long time. At least, Watanuki didn't see the spirit until it was time for him to start preparing dinner. The spirit was being led though the halls by Maru and Moro, looking slightly bewildered. Watanuki didn't blame him. Yuuko-san's shop did that to people.

"Oh, hello," he said to the group. "I'm just about to make dinner. Taicho, is there anything you'd like?" While Maru and Moro placed their own orders, ignoring the fact that Watanuki hadn't asked them for their opinion, Taicho remained silent. Watanuki had a small panic attack. 'Does he even eat?! Have I offended him some how?'

Before Watanuki's mind tore itself apart with worry, the diminutive spirit said. "Do you have… watermelon?"

The answer surprised Watanuki. "Watermelon?" Spirits like watermelon? "Ah… I don't' think so. It's out of season, and watermelon isn't really something you'd eat for dinner, is it?"

"Watermelon!"

"Watermelon!"

Watanuki had to suppress a groan. Great, now Maru and Moro wanted watermelon. And then Yuuko-san would want watermelon. He'd have to go buy expensive, out-of-season watermelon tomorrow. Wonderful. Of course, he really shouldn't complain. If the poor kid wanted watermelon, who was he (a mortal) to begrudge him (a spirit of undisclosed power) a watermelon?

"I'll have to see if we have any watermelon," Watanuki said over the girls' chorus of 'Watermelon, watermelon, we want watermelon!'

There was no watermelon. After being followed by two chanting girls, and a strange spirit, Watanuki felt that Yuuko-san should have had watermelon in the kitchen, but there was none of the melon to be found. Maru and Moro lamented the situation, but Taicho took the news stoically.

"Sorry, we don't have any watermelon…"

Taicho shrugged. "It doesn't matter. We can have something else for dinner."

"It seems so. Heh." Something about this spirit set Watanuki on edge. Spirits were bad news. That was the one law that Watanuki lived by, but recently that law had had a few exceptions. But those exceptions were fox-shaped, and cooked oden. Every other spirit he'd met had hurt him, wanted to hurt him, or caused him some kind of grief. Even spirits who seemed to like him caused him trouble. He'd almost died the day he met the Ame-Warashi, and the Zaski-Warashi… had made a mistake. Maybe he was subconsciously waiting for Taicho to cause something horrible to happen.

Suddenly, Maru and Moro stopped bewailing the lack of watermelons, and grabbed Taicho's hands.

"Come on, we have to leave!"

"Mistress says you shouldn't be in the kitchen," the girls giggled as they pulled a bewildered whit haired spirit from the kitchen.

"Besides, Watanuki doesn't like people in the kitchen."

"He yells at us when we try to help."

"I heard that!" Watanuki took objection to the girls' claims. "You can't call stealing the food 'helping'!"

There was only a vaguely creepy echo of giggling in reply.

* * *

When Watanuki arrived at the shop, four beings were there to greet him. Taicho seemed to have joined the 'welcome to work' group that included Maru, Moro and Modoka, though he didn't look too pleased to be there.

"She says that I start working when you do. Hurry up. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish," he declared over the sounds of Watanuki's welcome.

Once inside, however, Taicho didn't seem too interested in work. Probably because he saw the apron Yuuko had picked out for him. She must have gone shopping while Watanuki was at school, or something because he couldn't remember seeing it before, and something like that was hard to forget.

It wasn't that the apron was ugly- in fact, it was a _nice_ apron- it was just… not something that Taicho, an individual who radiated dignity (or tried to), would ever consider being within twenty feet of. In short, the apron was cute. It had the same rough shape as his, and it was white, but it had more lace. And there were snowflakes stitched into it. Where Yuuko-san had gotten it, he didn't know. He did know that the spirit it was intended for looked like he'd rather be boiled alive than wear it.

"But you have to! You don't want to get those clothes I loaned you dirty, do you?" Yuuko told him.

"Don't you have _any_ other aprons?" there was veiled desperation behind Taicho's eyes.

"Nope."

* * *

"She planned it. I know she did," Taicho growled as he and Watanuki battled the dust in the shop. Taicho was, much to his displeasure, wearing the apron. "I don't know how she knew how to get this apron before I came here, but she planned it. She knew I'd hate it, so she went and got this stupid apron!"

"You catch on quickly," Watanuki grumbled. His polite manner had thawed out as he worked, though he wasn't relaxed enough to complain about the spirit in question, he would happily complain about Yuuko. "She seems to know all about what happens before it happens. She's obsessed with this hitsuzen."

"I know. She explained it to me today," Taicho replied. "It sounds stupid."

"Yeah, but she still has that whole 'predicting the future' thing going on."

"Hn."

Watanuki shivered. It seemed to be getting colder.

* * *

The next day, on the way to work, Watanuki picked up a watermelon. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the season for watermelons, so there wasn't anything he could really do about it. He usually didn't buy produce out of season, but usually there weren't irritable spirits with a watermelon addiction working with him in the shop. Hopefully, the watermelon would make Taicho stop snapping at everybody.

It really was weird. One minute, Taicho was acting like a mature adult, and the next he acted like a horrible brat. Sometimes, not even Yuuko seemed to keep up with the mood swings. Taicho sometimes didn't seem to know how he wanted to act, and that fact seemed to aggravate the diminutive spirit, who would occasionally snap at the others in the shop.

Actually, Watanuki couldn't blame him. The kid had no idea who the hell he was, and he was missing a part of his soul. That had to be hard on someone, even a spirit, and even if he was a spirit, Taicho was still a child. At least, he looked like a child; he threw a fit every time Yuuko tried to even insinuate that he was one. It would be funnier if the shop's temperature didn't take a nose-dive every time it happened.

Other than that, Taicho was a good companion. He took work as seriously as Watanuki himself did, besides cooking, since he wasn't allowed to do that. He was also staunchly against Yuuko-san's midday binging. It was comforting to have an ally against Yuuko's alcoholism. Even if she never listened to either of them.

Even though Taicho was a good ally against the excesses of their boss, something about the white haired spirit made Watanuki uneasy. He was glad that he only had to deal with him during work. If Yuuko-san, after hearing the effect Taicho had on the spirits that followed Watanuki, started having the diminutive figure follow him, he didn't know how well he could handle it.

Which is why Watanuki Kimihiro could be seen in the middle of an empty street violently cursing fate, irony, and something called 'hitsuzen' as he rounded a corner and saw several hungry-looking spirits waiting for him.

* * *

A/N: In manga, you can just throw in some dramatic shots of the characters while they talk. _It doesn't work like that in prose!_ So, when a fanfiction author tries to mimic the story style of a series with a lot of explaining, like say, xxxHolic(!) you get large chunks of dialogue with nothing really _happaning_ except talking. Nothing.

Anyway, sorry about this chapter, it's mostly rubbish, I know, but things have been hectic this week, the dreaded Writers' Block fell on me, etc, etc. So, you know what makes my day? Reviews. Click on the button. You know you want to...


	5. Trip

5: Trip

Watanuki was stuck, and he knew it. He couldn't outrun these spirits, they were too close to him, and even if he could, the only safe haven was through the demons- Yuuko's shop. He didn't have any salt, either. Very few times in his life had he been in such fatal situations. He was stuck. The last time, he'd been saved by Yuuko-san's fence. He doubted that today would yield such handy dues ex machina.

His options were few- and none of them would do any good in the end. He could run, but the spirits would catch him. He could throw the watermelon, but that really wouldn't do any good, and standing still hoping they didn't notice him was an option that never really worked.

Watanuki Kimihiro was going to die.

The only good thing about the situation was that at least that jerk, Doumeki, wasn't there to witness his demise due to sheer carelessness. He had gotten soft, working for Yuuko-san. Being under her protection, fewer spirits bothered him, (Watanuki conveniently forgot that this was due to her orders to hang around near Doumeki) and consequently, he hadn't needed to be on guard constantly.

And now, he was paying the price for thinking he could turn his brain off like any normal human.

The spirits began lumbering and glooping towards him, and Watanuki closed his eyes. A breath later, he opened them. Watanuki Kimihiro was going to die, but he was going to die fighting. Maybe, just maybe, he could get to Yuuko-san's shop. Maybe he could get to the fence. Maybe he could live.

Just as he had mustered his courage to charge through the spirits in a last ditch attempt to get to the safety of Yuuko's shop, the spirit closest to him exploded.

The other two spirits didn't acknowledge the disappearance of their comrade, and continued forward after their delicious treat.

"Way of Destruction 31! Shakkahou!"

Another spirit was destroyed in a red blast. The last spirit continued its oblivious advance toward Watanuki. Watanuki himself looked around for the thing that was destroying the spirits.

"Way of Destruction 31! Shakkahou!" The last spirit vanished in a violent fiery red blast and Watanuki finally found his savior.

Taicho stood on a phone poll, veiled in the smoke from the- whatever it was he'd done, glaring at the scene before him. As Watanuki stared up at the strange spirit, he got a vivid impression of power. The smoke cleared, and Taicho jumped down from the poll. Close up, Watanuki could see that the youthful looking spirit was panting.

"You… you did that?" he asked, slightly awed. He'd never seen anything so… flashy before.

"Yes," was the curt reply. Not that Watanuki could blame the spirit; he sounded really out of breath, and looked paler than normal. "Come on. Back to the shop." Taicho tried to turn decisively and stride away, but he stumbled as he took the first step. Watanuki rushed up to him, ready to help in any way he could, not even sure that he could help.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," Taicho said savagely, pushing the human away. "Don't treat me like a kid!" Watanuki flinched back from the acid in the spirit's voice.

"Ok, ok." He tried to placate the out-of-breath spirit. "Um, let's just get to Yuuko-san's shop? Once we get to the fence then we don't have to worry…"

* * *

They had managed to get within sight of the shop, and Watanuki let himself relax. They had made it without another hungry spirit appearing, or Taicho collapsing on the street.

Whatever the grumpy spirit claimed, those attacks had taken a lot out of him, and it showed in every step as he wearily trudged toward the shop. Unfortunately, Taicho's legs carried out what they had been threatening the whole way to safety and he collapsed. Watanuki managed to stop the spirit's head from cracking against the pavement, but lost hold of the watermelon in the process. It smashed into goop on the street, and Watanuki was very glad that he only had to see a watermelon in gooey chunks on the pavement and not… something else.

"Taicho?"

The white haired spirit looked blearily at him. "Let go of me. I'm fine."

"Yeah, um, can you stand up?" Watanuki was pretty sure that Taicho wasn't fine, but he wasn't about to say that to a spirit who could shoot fire or whatever it was he'd just done, even if he was feeling low.

Taicho tried to struggle to his feet, but he didn't get anywhere, slumping back into Watanuki's arms. "No…" he growled.

"When we get to the shop you can try again," Watanuki suggested, dragging the spirit to his feet. With more of Watanuki's help then he'd ever admit, Taicho made it to the path that led up to the shop's door where Maru and Moro were waiting with solemn faces.

"Mistress says you've done well, Taicho."

"Mistress says we should bring you to your room."

Taicho didn't argue. Getting some sleep sounded wonderful, especially now that his eyelids had somehow gained weight.

Watanuki followed the two girls as they lead (carried) the exhausted spirit into the shop. He paused once they entered the building, wondering whether to go with them, or report to Yuuko-san.

"Watanuki-kun!" Mokona launched itself through the air onto Watanuki's face. "Watanuki-kun!" It said happily again, jumping onto his shoulder.

"What do you want, pork-bun?" Watanuki snapped, irritated at the artificial creature for startling him.

"Yuuko wants to talk to you," it said, in a suspiciously smug tone. "And she says to get the sake."

"She would. Before or after she says suspicious things to me?"

"Hm…" It tapped its chin as if trying to recall an elusive memory. "After!"

"Fine…"

Yuuko-san was wearing a traditional-style white kimono today, with a light blue dragon coiling around the obi. "Ah, Watanuki-kun. I'm glad I decided to send Taicho to check on you."

"I should have known…" Watanuki muttered.

"Really now, Watanuki-kun, you act like saving your life is a bad thing!"

"It's not! It's not!" Yuuko-san had said she wouldn't kill anyone, but you never knew with her. "Wait… how did you know that I was in danger? How did you know that Taicho could help?"

"I didn't." Yuuko smirked. "Taicho was the one who insisted you were in danger, and that he could help. I simply put my faith in him, and let him go. Much cheaper that way."

"What?" Cheaper? Watanuki shuddered. Even if his life was on the line, Yuuko-san was still Yuuko-san.

"Well, if Ii made him stay, he'd have to rediscover some of his abilities in a much more unpleasant way," she informed her part-timer. "In some situations, people know what's good for them. It's called 'instinct.' And it's quite cheap."

"So, are you saying that Taicho has to fix himself? You couldn't grant his wish?" This was strange and very unlike the Yuuko that Watanuki knew. She would grant any wish she could, even wishes of people who hadn't known they wanted to wish for something before she pointed it out. Why wasn't she even offering to grant this spirit's wish? Wait… Er… his wish is for his memory back, right?"

A smile ghosted across the lips of the space/time witch. "It is, but we could not afford the cost of me granting his wish."

Watanuki wished that Yuuko-san would just give a strait answer for once. He hated trying to work out what his employer meant whenever she went all cryptic on him. It was especially frustrating because the information he was looking for was often important for his survival. It made the job of continuing to exist harder when important nuggets of information were given to him in this strange, coded way.

He couldn't ask for clarification, however, because Yuuko-san reminded him of the second part of her orders. "Sake, Watanuki-kun! All this talking has made me thirsty!"

* * *

"And we have to get there… how?" Ichigo asked incredulously. He, Renji and Matsumoto were standing outside Urahara's shop as he explained how they were going to get where they needed to go to rescue Toshiro. The little captain in question, according to Urahara's contact, who sold dreams according to Urahara, or something, was in a different world. This world was apparently not Soul Society, or the Dongai Precipice World, which was confusing for Ichigo, but then again, a lot of things were kind of confusing for Ichigo, so he just shrugged this one off. Hey, it was as plausible as some of the other stuff. But, getting to the world where Toshiro was by walking between the fence and telephone pole? Urahara was officially crazy.

"Come now, Kurosaki-kun, I just explained it!" Urahara exclaimed, waving his fan around in mock shock. "In order to rescue Hitsugaya-taicho, you have to get to the world of the Dimensional Witch. To do that, you have to walk between this pole and this fence."

"How the hell do you expect that to work?!" Renji demanded angrily. He and Matsumoto were in gigais, standing in the small street just outside Urahara's shop.

"Um… because it's always worked in the past!" Urahara said cheerfully. "Really, you don't have time to debate weather or not this is the portal to the world Hitsugaya-taicho is in, or not. If it is, you only have a limited time. If not, I'm the only lead you have, and I happen to be eccentric. Humoring me may be the only way to get the information you want. Either way, you have to walk the walk." Despite the serious emergency, Urahara seemed to be genuinely enjoying this.

"Fine!" Matsumoto snapped, eyes flashing. "We'll do what you say." She started towards the pole.

"Wait a minute," Ichigo called. "I'm all for rescuing Toshiro, but why do I have to go with them? And why is Renji coming with, anyway?"

"Well, according to the Dream Merchant, the world where Hitsugaya-taicho is practically identical to this one, as far as Real-World culture goes," Urahara said, patiently. "You're going as a sort of cultural guide. While Abarai-fukutaicho and Matsumoto-fukutaicho have both been in the real world before, they're really bad at it. As for 'why,' it's obvious, isn't it? Matsumoto-fukutaicho came to you about rescuing someone. You can't resist, because of your hero-complex. You should get that looked at, by the way."

"Hey!" Renji objected. "We didn't exactly have the time Rukia had to study human literature and culture!"

"… When you get right down to it, Rukia's 'study of human literature' didn't do squat," Ichigo said, ignoring Geta-Boshi's comment about him having a 'hero-complex' whatever that was. He didn't have one, why should he argue about something that wasn't true when there were people to rescue? The shinigami, however, needed their view of the real world corrected. "Frankly, it made her seem even weirder." Seriously, no one talks like that anymore."

"That's very nice, we have to go!" Matsumoto insisted, not really paying attention to the conversation. It didn't have useful information on how to find her captain; therefore, it wasn't important. All this talking seemed to just waste time, and the busty vice-captain was seriously considering just shoving Renji and Ichigo through the little space. The only thing stopping her was the fact that she was supposed to have at least two captain-class shinigami with her at all times, and Ichigo, her only viable option (all the other captain-class shinigami were too busy to come or Kurotsuchi-taicho) was only coming out of good will (or his insane obsession with saving people). He might not feel like coming if the person he was doing the favor for was shoving him through strange places.

"Renji is coming for the second reason you are, Kurosaki-kun," Urahara continued, nonplussed. "Your both captain-class Shinigami. If you can't handle whatever is in that world, no one else can. Renji, specifically, is going because he a) has been in the real world, and b) while being captain-class, isn't a captain himself, and can be more easily spared than one of the remaining captions. You, Ichigo, are very familiar with the human world, very powerful, and don't have any responsibilities the Gotei 13 consider too important, so there's no way your getting out of this one. Not that your saving-people compulsion would let you."

"Fine," Ichigo grumbled. "If I can't get out of this, I might as well get it over with."

"Yes! Let's go!"

"You didn't ask why Matsumoto-fukutaicho is here," Urahara pointed out.

"That's obvious, isn't it?" Ichigo snapped at the weirdo. "She's his vice-captain, for cryin' out loud! Why wouldn't she be here?"

"Good job, Kurosaki-kun!"

"What the hell? That doesn't even make sense!"

"We're GOING now!" Matsumoto said, grabbing Renji and Ichigo. Favor or not, her captain needed her RIGHT NOW. They needed to leave. "Come on!"

"Ok! Ok! Ow, ow, ow… don't! That hurts!" Renji objected as he was shoved roughly toward the alleged portal.

"I'm going already!" Ichigo tried to shake her hand on his shoulder, but couldn't break the vice-like grip. "Calm down!"

Renji was the first to be shoved through the gap. After Matsumoto compressed him through the gap, he disappeared.

"Hey, what the-?" Ichigo didn't finish that sentence. He was the next victim, and Matsumoto could be a force of nature when she really, really felt like it. This was undeniably one of those times.

It was a tight fit, but he managed to get through without displacing any ribs, fortunately. He staggered as he popped out of the strangely placed "portal." Renji was on the other side, rubbing his ribs and looking around.

"It looks like any other human city," he grumbled. "I'm starting to think that living among you humans is bad for shinigami sanity."

"Hey!" Ichigo protested. "This is Urahara we're talking about. D'you think he started out sane?"

Ichigo didn't hear Renji's reply, because at that moment Matsumoto crashed into him, knocking them both over. He went perfectly still in self-defense. If he moved, or reacted in any way, this situation would most definitely get worse. He'd had experience with the women of Seireitei, and they were insane. Very, very insane. Especially… all of them. But, he hoped that this way, Matsumoto would leave him alone once she got off of him.

He needn't have worried. The buxom vice-captain in question was too worried about her superior to tease Ichigo that night. She jumped upright, looking around, as if she expected her missing captain to be somewhere in this street. He wasn't, unfortunately. She rounded on Ichigo, who was still laying on the ground in self-defense. "What the hell are you laying around for?" she demanded, dragging him upright. "We have a captain to find!"

"Right!" Ichigo decided that hell may hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a woman scorned hath no fury… or whatever- like a woman who lost her precious captain. He decided that the best thing to do would be to simply do whatever she said, at least until she calmed down. Or they found Toshiro. Whichever came first. Hopefully whatever came first would come soon. There's only so much a man could take in those sorts of circumstances.

* * *

Watanuki ambled towards Yuuko's shop, carrying the groceries for tonight's dinner in one hand, mentally going over the options for dinner. He hadn't bought another watermelon yet; there wasn't a point. Taicho had gone to sleep yesterday after returning to the room that Yuuko was loaning him, and hadn't woken up yet. Watanuki worried that the small spirit had over exerted himself in a life-threatening way. Yuuko-san claimed that he was simply coming back to himself- sort of. Watanuki didn't know what she meant by that, but all she said was "He can't come back to himself until he does."

Was there a part of Taicho roaming loose out there in the world? Watanuki wondered. Was that even possible? How would that even work? Was it was that part of his (Taicho's) soul that Yuuko-san was talking about?

Watanuki shook his head. Thinking like Yuuko was like inviting headaches to take up permanent residence in his skull. She probably thought that way because of all the sake she drank. Yeah, that was it.

A frigid wind sliced through his coat, and the bespectacled boy sped up. It was freakishly cold this year, even though the weathermen kept predicting normal weather. They predicted weather patterns that were a lot warmer than what actually happened. While weathermen being wrong was nothing new, having the weather consistently drop roughly ten degrees under whatever the meteorologists predicted was.

He was passing through the park now, and the weather seemed colder than ever. As he passed by the forest, the temperature plunged like a heavy stone dropped off of a cliff. That wasn't natural. Not in the least. A sudden pressure made Watanuki look up.

"D-d-dragon…" he breathed in shock. It looked at him with crimson eyes, and Watanuki thought that the great beast was looking through his very soul. He didn't know whether to run away as fast as he could, or bow.

The dragon leaned toward him, and Watanuki could see the waning light shine off of its light blue scales. But as the dragon got closer to him, the blue-eyed boy could see the scales in more detail. They weren't blue, not exactly. They seemed to be made of ice. The whole dragon seemed to be made of ice. How did that work? Then again, this was a spirit; the laws of physics –and common sense, for that matter- never seemed to apply to them.

The air was even colder now, and the great head was about thirty feet away. Was the dragon making the weather colder? Watanuki wondered. The stories said they had the power to do that, control the weather, but usually they made it rain, not freeze.

Suddenly, the dragon's head jerked up, as if it had heard something, and the human whose gaze it had ensnared was freed. Watanuki jogged quickly out of the park.

* * *

The white haired spirit with only the title 'Taicho' for a name vaulted into wakefulness.

Yuuko looked unsurprised at the spirit who had just sat strait up. After exhaling smoke from her pipe she asked, "Well?"

Without looking at the woman who had addressed him, the white haired not-child said, "Something… something is coming. Something is here."

Edit: I went back and put divider lines in chapters 3-5. Check it out.

A/N: So, we have another chapter completed. I would like to take this time to thank my wonderful reviewers, Reidluver, Exclamaited, Fanasyname, and Bokmal14. Thank you for your lovely reviews!!! I also have to mention Poe-of-Nothing for letting me basically bully her into beta'ing for me. You know you love unsquished me!

Urahara is INSANE. Seriously, he is. I'm not sure if I have him in character, or not. S'freaky. Really freaky. Anyway, notes on the chapter:

Bowing: As most(all?) of you know, people in China and Japan actually like their dragons, and respect them. So, if one were to meet a dragon, one would show respect. By bowing. Watanuki is just very used to running. Very. (Poor him)

Real Life Corner: I almost couldn't post this chapter today. I did, however, probably give a collage student a heart attack. It's rather strange, and sad. I was walking on the sidewalk, coming up to an exit of the parking lot of an apartment complex when a car pulls up to the stop sign, and the driver is getting ready to pull out onto the road.

Her head is focused on one spot: a car that's on the road that she has to wait for, even though there is a quite obvious sidewalk, and therefore might be pedestrians. The car passes, she hits the gas, starts moving, and THEN turns her head, to spot me calmly standing not five feet from her, as she is moving. I could see the shock and horror on her face as she said 'Oh my Go-' pulling away. (I didn't see her finish the end of that sentence. She moved out of my line of sight.) Yes. She probably would have hit me if I hadn't been paying attention. The lesson here? LOOK EVERYWHERE WHEN YOU'RE DRIVING.

Sorry for rambling, I'm done now. Please review, as always.


	6. Tasty

6: Tasty

Whoever this 'Dream Merchant' was, he was right. This place looked like every other human city Ichigo had been in. It looked a lot like the shots of Tokyo he'd seen on TV, for a matter of fact, and people acted like normal, regular people. If it weren't for the spirits he kept seeing, he'd think he were home.

The spirits weren't the spirits of departed humans, as far as Ichigo, or the other shinigami could tell. They were grotesque and macabre for the most part. Mostly purple blob-jelly things with huge eyes and other random organs strewn through the jell-o of their bodies. They had seen a few dismembered hands, but they gave off a decidedly predatory spiritual pressure that made Ichigo want to stab the things to oblivion. He didn't have any idea what those things could do, and Matsumoto kept her two male companions moving in constant search for her captain or he would have.

Matsumoto was an unrelenting force of nature in her search. She rose earlier than the other members of the search party and Renji had to physically drag her back to the apartment they had found almost every night for the past week and a half. Though he insisted a worn out lieutenant wouldn't be any use to their captain, Matsumoto countered with the fact that she couldn't be of any use to him unless she knew where he was. Renji would tell her that she couldn't find her captain if she couldn't see strait. She never tried to escape the apartment once she was in it, though, and that was a very good thing, since neither male could really stop her if she tried. Ichigo didn't actually know any kido, and Renji couldn't set up restraining wards to save his life. Keeping watch wasn't a viable option either, as she could easily knock them out with kido, or slip out the bathroom window if she felt stealthy.

As the deathberry wandered aimlessly through the town, he hoped that they would find the kid captain soon. Ichigo never liked seeing people upset, and Matsumoto was absolutely devastated at her captain's disappearance. Toshiro's disappearance upset Ichigo too. He couldn't help himself, but he thought of the white haired shinigami as a younger brother figure, probably because he seemed the same age as Ichigo's sisters and acted like Karin. If those two ever met, they'd probably get along like a house on fire. Exactly like a house on fire.

Ichigo looked up and actually took note on his surroundings for once. He was at a river that looked uncomfortably like the one where… where he'd first met the Grand Fisher. There were a lot of nice cherry trees here, though. That was different. There was also a high schooler walking along the bank, muttering angrily to himself.

"Yuuko-san is insane," Ichigo heard. "Telling me to take a different rout to the shop today. I'll be late, and she'll charge me over time! And I'll be late on HER ORDERS!" Other than talking to himself, the kid didn't seem too weird. Ichigo decided to just leave him alone, and continued to walk down the bank. His inner Hollow seemed to have different ideas, though.

"Doesn't he seem tasty, King," the Hollow said hungrily.

Ichigo's head jerked up to the kid. Who was staring at him in horror, as if he'd heard the Hollow. Could he? That wasn't supposed to be possible! Not even the other Vizoreds could see inner Hollows! If he could, things would get real ugly real fast.

* * *

There were two people standing behind the guy with orange hair. One was an older man with longish hair, sunglasses and the beginnings of a beard. The other was a white and black version of the (probably) human standing in front of him, only this … spirit was in traditional clothing with a long sword strapped to his back.

Something about the white spirit scared Watanuki. There was something… unnatural about it. It stood there grinning at him, as if to say 'wait till I get you.' And it had said he looked tasty.

The old man acted then, standing in front of the white boy, as if blocking him from getting to Watanuki. The orange-haired boy standing behind them seemed horrified at what the white spirit had said.

"Zangetsu! Don't be a spoil sport!" the white spirit whined. "He looks tasty! Why shouldn't we eat him?"

The man –Zangetsu- said something. Well, at least his mouth moved, but Watanuki didn't hear anything come out. At this, the orange-haired kid jerked his head toward the old man, nodded then took off running down the bank of the river, away from Watanuki.

Watanuki's own trance of horror was broken too. He turned and pelted toward Yuuko's store, that wonderful, safe store with the wonderful ward around it. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he was shocked to find that all three people who had been on the edge of the river were gone. Even the creepy spirit with whiter skin than Taicho.

That was strange. He had been expecting at least the hungry spirit to still be there, watching him or something, if not trying to catch him.

He arrived at his destination out of breath.

"He's here! He's here! Watanuki: April first!"

"He's here! Watanuki's here!" Maru and Moro's greetings reached his ears as Watanuki caught his breath. He removed his shoes and entered the shop, putting on his apron.

"Ah, Watanuki," Yuuko greeted him. "How was your day?"

"I almost got eaten because of you!" he accused. To the boy's surprise, Yuuko had the good grace enough to actually looked startled.

"Eaten?"

"Yeah! There was this kid, my age, and two spirits behind him. An old guy and an all-white version of the kid who said I looked tasty!" Watanuki growled at her. "And it's all your fault! Because you said 'Take a new way to work today, Watanuki'" He continued with his rant, but Yuuko ignored him. She'd stopped listening after her sla- part-timer had described the spirits he'd seen. A serious look passed over her face as she digested that information.

"That's interesting," she murmured.

"What?" demanded Watanuki irately. While he was irritated with Yuuko-san, he knew from experience to _listen_ to what she said when she got that serious look. Usually, her words turned out to be crucial to life-and-death situations, and the surviving of such. Though, sometimes, she just set him up for her own cruel amusement, the ratio of important information to jokes was stacked enough in 'important information's' favor to prompt Watanuki to take the witch seriously every time. Sure he fell for her jokes, but he also continued living, which was a very good thing in his book.

"I'm out of beer," she said in the same serious tone.

The bespectacled boy sighed and went to get his employer some more alcohol. She would never discuss anything serious when she was in this mood, so trying to get anything important out of her would be impossible. He started to exit the room, but Yuuko's voice made him pause.

"And see if you can find Taicho," she called after her little errand boy.

Watanuki brought out a few bottles of beer from Yuuko's stash, but he couldn't find the white haired spirit anywhere during the brief search he conducted as he made his way back to Yuuko.

After getting the witch her alcohol fix, she commanded Watanuki to find the spirit once again, and then make snacks. A thorough search later, he still hadn't found the grouchy guest, and he was willing to look in some pretty strange places. Working on the assumption that the young-looking individual would be asleep, as he was every day when Watanuki entered the shop for some time now, the search had been centered around comfortable places that Taicho had usually been found. The idea that maybe the strange boy wasn't asleep flitted across Watanuki's mind. If he wasn't asleep, then the number of hiding spots grew, but it would make more sense, since he hadn't been in any of his usual nap spots.

This search also turned up nothing, and the excitable boy was getting frustrated. Where could that watermelon-stealing spirit be? He hadn't left the shop-

That though made Watanuki pause. He might not have left the lot that the shop was on, but what if the boy was outside? It seemed ridiculous—it was freezing out there!—but then again, the white-haired spirit seemed to revel in the cold temperatures.

Watanuki glanced at the back garden and lo and behold, there was Taicho, in the middle of the yard. He was just standing there in one of the child-sized kimono Yuuko loaned him. Once the agitated young man had gotten proper footwear for an outside trip, he ventured into the frozen garden. It was frigid, and the wind slashed through his clothes. Watanuki wondered how Taicho could stand this weather, even if he was a spirit.

As he approached the spirit in question, Watanuki was surprised that he hadn't turned around to see who was coming. Usually, Taicho could sense someone coming even if they were being completely silent, and there was no way that Watanuki's approach could be described as quiet, by any means. Hesitantly, the boy reached out a hand to shake the spirit's shoulder to get his attention. Taicho didn't respond.

"T-taicho?" Watanuki said through chattering teeth. He was _cold_ out here without his jacket.

"He's out there." Taicho's voice seemed distant, somehow.

"W-who?"

"I…" Taicho's brow furrowed in frustration. "I don't know. I don't know, and I need to!" The wind blew even more viciously, as if to emphasize the spirit's anger. "I can't forget him, but I did…"

"T-taich-cho, we should g-go back ins-side," Watanuki stammered. "Yuuk-ko-san is wa-waiting."

The ice-hued spirit nodded, reluctantly turning to go back into the house. Watanuki followed gratefully. Once in the house, Taicho seemed to snap out of it, though he seemed exaousted. Yuuko merely glanced at him when he entered with Watanuki, but after the two of them brought her snacks, she ordered Taicho off to bed, and gave Watanuki the day off. He wasn't exactly sure what Yuuko was up to, or if he really wanted the day off in this bad weather, but he obeyed his employer and left her shop.

As he was leaving, Yuuko called out, "Watanuki-kun should visit the park on his day off! He should have some fun, right?"

"Right, right!" Mokona agreed with her like the sycophantic honey-bun that he was.

Watanuki left in a huff after that.

As the icy wind cooled his temper, Watanuki actually considered Yuuko's words. What was it with the witch and alternative paths lately? Was he supposed to meet someone? It was entirely possible, but she had seemed taken aback when he had described the encounter at the riverbank. Or was he not supposed to see anyone there? Whether he liked it or not, Yuuko's every move was carefully calculated to produce whatever effect she desired. She was in complete control of her surroundings. Nothing happened that she didn't appear to already have known about. Sometimes it was scary how much she seemed to know. It was quite possible that he had been supposed to meet someone at the river, but if so, then why hadn't he? Yuuko had looked surprised. Had some part of her master plan not fallen through?

Watanuki looked up, and to his dismay, his feet had automatically brought him to the park! Yuuko-san seemed to be in complete control of _his_ life, at least, since even his feet were obeying her wishes and not his.

At least he wan't the only person in the park, he mused as he spotted a woman dressed completely in black sitting on one of the benches as the wind played with strands of her long strawberry blond hair. He wondered if she was actually enjoying this weather. As his rout through the park brought him closer to the woman, she jerked, as if startled and looked at him with curious grey eyes.

"Er, hello," Watanuki said as she continued to stare intently at him.

She jumped again, looking around the park before finally pointing at herself, asking, "Me? Are you talking to me?"

"Um, yes," he replied politely, walking a little closer to her. "Who else would I be talking to?" Closer, he could make out details about her outfit. It was a traditional-looking gi that didn't quite cover the woman's impressive… assets. Other than the white belt and edging on her outfit, the only color came from a pink scarf draped about her neck. He also noticed that there was what appeared to be a small, ash-colored lioness draped on the bench next to the woman. If lions could be called 'small'. It, too, was looking at him with eyes that were eerily similar to the woman's.

"I wasn't expecting anyone to see me," she said. "I'm impressed."

She wasn't expecting anyone to see her… that stood Watanuki's hair on end. If this woman meant what he thought she meant, than she was a spirit, and spirits were very bad news for Watanuki. The cat next to her? Definitely a spirit. "Ah…" was about all he could manage.

"I'm Matsumoto Rangiku," she continued. "Who are you?"

"Ah- Watanuki Kimihiro," Watanuki Kimihiro said. Though he probably shouldn't have.

"April First!" Matsumoto cheered. "A good day for drinking," she said with self-assured authority. The lioness nodded in agreement. The movement left trails of what seemed to be ash around its head.

"Matsumoto-san-" Watanuki began, but he was interrupted by a hand thrust toward him in a 'halt' gesture. The lioness looked irritated, but didn't get up, thankfully.

"It's 'Rangiku'. 'Rangiku-san' if you must but calling me 'Matsumoto-san' makes me feel old."

"Ok…" Watanuki tried to regain his train of thought. "Rangiku-san, why are you here?"

"Why am I here? Hm…" she mused. Watanuki wondered if this woman was drunk. She'd probably be great friends with Yuuko-san if they ever met, even if this woman was sober. Especially if this woman was sober. Watanuki shuddered at the thought. If this woman was sober, then what was she like drunk? "I'm looking for someone. Someone important."

"Really? Who?"

"You probably couldn't- what am I saying! Of course you could!" Rangiku-san laughed. "You can see me, after all."

Watanuki gulped. There went the possibility this woman was human. "W-who are you looking for?" he asked nervously. How fast could he leave? He didn't want to be here, with this human-looking spirit and the lioness. True, both the Ame-Warashi and the Zaski-Warashi were human-looking, but they were fairly powerful, and Watanuki didn't like messing with powerful spirits that weren't Yuuko's clients. Or (apparently) had crushes on him. He certainly didn't want to mess with lion-spirits.

"I'm looking for Hitsugaya Toushiro."

"I'm sorry, I don't know that person," Watanuki told her, hoping that he wouldn't have to and she wouldn't fry him for not knowing.

"I didn't expect you to," she sighed, and for a second, a look of sorrow passed across the woman's pretty face. The lioness's ears and tail drooped, mimicking Rangiku-san's mood. She'd said that she was looking for someone important. Watanuki wondered who exactly this 'Hitsugaya Toushiro' was to Rangiku-san. "He's been missing for weeks, and I miss him so much, even if he did make me work. It feels like years since I last saw him."

"I'm sorry." There really wan't anything else for Watanuki to say.

"It's ok." Rangiku-san smiled at him. "I'll find him in no time, and he'll be back where he belongs and-" Rangiku-san stopped as she and the lioness looked suddenly in the direction that Watanuki had come form. "Sure are a lot of people with high reatsu," she muttered.

Watanuki turned to see what Rangiku-san was talking about and saw Himawari-chan coming down the path. "Himawari-chan!" he gasped, disbelieving his luck. Yuuko-san's advice was actually good for something! He started towards her, but stopped. "Um, Rangiku-san, I-"

She laughed. "Don't worry about it!" she giggled. "Have a nice day with your girlfriend."

"Himawari-chan's not-" but it was too late. The strange spirits was already gone. The lioness had left, too, although Watanuki didn't see why. Surely the lioness didn't care about his privacy, did it?

"Watanuki-kun, I didn't expect to see you here!" Himawari-chan exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I thought you had work."

"Yuuko-san gave me the day off, and told me to come home through the park," Watanuki sighed, reveling in Himawari-chan's presence. It was so sweet! And so much sweeter for Doumeki's absence! "What brings you here?"

"Oh, well, I wanted to see the park covered in snow, so I took the long way home after my piano lesson," she explained.

"Ah! I see!"

As Watanuki spent some coveted 'alone-time' with his precious Himawari-chan, he forgot all about the strange spirits whom he had met at the park.

* * *

A/N: Yay, longest chapter yet! Let's see if I can keep this up.

Anyway, I'd like just clarify something, mostly for my own sanity. The rescue party arrives the same day Watanuki almost gets eaten. This chapter takes place a while later. So. Yeah. I felt the need to say that.

In any case, thank you for reading. Those of you who reviewed, you guys are TOTALLY WICKED!!!! Those of you who haven't reviewed... please do. Even if you just want to say 'keep going' or something. I'd love to hear from you, so please review.


	7. Followed

7: Fight

The spirit known as 'Taicho' didn't know what to do. He sat on the porch at the back of the shop, watching the snow be blown across the lawn, and feeling the cool, refreshing wind brush across his face. And this was all very pleasant, but he knew that something was wrong. He knew that a lot of things were _wrong_. For one thing, he didn't know who he was, or why he felt he had earned the title of 'Taicho'. He couldn't remember anything concrete about himself, or where he had come from. He didn't know why he was so worried about Watanuki when the boy left the wards around the shop or why this worry came from the fact the boy could see him. He didn't know why he shouldn't be seen, and why it was such a big issue that these people could see him.

But his biggest worry was the emptiness he felt. He knew that there was something very wrong with him. He was missing something, and the feeling of wrongness was soul-deep. He felt incomplete. In fact, if felt like a piece of his soul was missing.

He wanted to find this missing piece. Find it, locate it, reclaim it. He wanted _him_ back. Whether '_him' _was a separate entity that held all his memories, or simply how his brain had chosen to represent that important missing bit, Taicho didn't know, but unlike most gaps in his knowledge, this one didn't bother him. It did not matter in the end what exactly '_him_' was, for in the end, '_him_' would be found, and all the lost memories would return.

And he had to find '_him_' soon. The emptiness felt like a black hole; a whirlpool draining what was left of his memories and his energy. Taicho guessed that this weakness would continue to worsen. Where it ended he was not sure. He assumed the most probable outcome was his death. From the occasional looks he caught the human Watanuki giving him, it was clear the boy thought so too.

Taicho may have forgotten many things he once knew, but one thought lodged in his brain like a tree in the soil: _I will not die._

* * *

Since they had arrived in this world, they days had had a specific pattern to them. Get up, eat, and search for Hitsugaya. Eat lunch where they could get it, and then continue the search. Ichigo and Renji returned to their temporary home once they were hungry. After they ate, Renji would leave again to go drag Matsumoto off the streets.

Today was no different, and the red-headed vice-captain had spent most of that morning looking for Hitsugaya-taicho. Like every other day, he couldn't find him. Renji wished he wasn't on this mission. Day after day of searching, with nothing to show for it made him wish he could battle an army of Hollow instead. At least then, he would feel like he was actuality _doing_ something. Searching for Hitsugaya-taicho was important, but every passing day made it more and more likely that the youngest captain of the Gotei 13 would not be found. That depressing fact weighed down on everyone in the search party, but no one dared mention it, for fear of what Matsumoto would do to them.

As Renji glared down a street he knew that he had searched two days ago, he decided that a break was in order. The only question was where. There had been that river with cherry trees lining it, he recalled. Maybe there would be a good place to try and shake off this damn pitying feeling.

A wonderful plan, however, it was totally scrapped when a feeling of reiatsu-induced vertigo swept over him. He followed his senses to what he guessed was a high school.

Standing on the roof of the school, he felt the strange sense of vertigo again. There seemed to be two conflicting spirit pressures coming from the building, and they clashed against each other, their opposing natures creating strange currants in the air. It felt like he was standing near the 12th division's Super Hollow Bait that had gone off just inside a kido ward. As he watched an area that was probably the place where the students had their P.E. class, Renji couldn't stop himself from reviewing what he knew about their mission. There was something weird going on here, and it might affect the mission. Break time was over.

Though they had already checked practically every nook and cranny in the town, they didn't leave. Matsumoto insisted that she could feel Hyorinmaru's reiatsu, albeit faintly. Her companions didn't question her about it. Ichigo knew he couldn't sense his way out of a paper bag (and therefore never doubted anyone when they said 'I can sense –insert type of reiatsu here-' because he couldn't really say they were wrong), and Renji knew that a lieutenant knew the feel of their captain's power almost better than they did their own. If Matsumoto said Hyorinmaru was here, Hyorinmaru was here. And it followed that if Hyorinmaru was here, so was Captain Hitsugaya. All they had to do, Matsumoto insisted, was find him.

This was easier said than done. There was absolutely no sign of the kid, despite the fact that Hyorinmaru was in the area, and the red-headed shinigami couldn't help but wonder if they could find him, or if he even wanted to be found.

A crowd of cheerfully chatting humans interrupted Renji's train of thought. As he watched disinterestedly, a wave of swirling vertigo swept over him, and he suddenly snapped upright, all his attention focused on the group. The strange spirit pressures were coming from _someone_ in that group.

In two flash steps, Renji was perched in one of the trees with the best vantage point. If one or more of these kids were making that weird affect… While he wasn't exactly sure what relevance it held, that bit of information might be important.

* * *

Gym class was always the worst. Since he was outside, (_unprotected_) _they_ would start appearing. _They_ usually wouldn't come inside the fence, but it was very hard to ignore them, and Watanuki loathed having to stare at things no one else could see. It made him stand out, and he knew he looked like a freak. He wished he could just ignore them, but too often, they would try and make a grab for him, some way or another, and he had to know where they were at all times. And that meant staring at 'nothing'.

This year, however, had been much better, in terms of _not_ seeing invisible monsters than any previous year. He had wondered why until Yuuko-san had explained about Doumeiki's power to repel spirits. Since the annoying individual was in his gym class, it made sense, then, that he wouldn't see spirits during gym. He just wished that this good fortune had nothing to do with Doumeiki.

Watanuki had gotten used to having a normal P.E. class, so when he spotted the red-headed man in a shihakusho, and the strange, buff baboon with a snake tail, he was caught off guard.

"Wha-" Any inquiry he might have made was cut off when the soccer ball hit him square in the face.

Eyes watering, and the feeling of knives being shoved up his nose did nothing to sweeten Watanuki's temper, so when his vision cleared, and he saw Doumeiki standing above him, holding the soccer ball, (he assumed that it was the offending ball, just because it was Doumeiki, despite the fact that there were dozens of identical balls on the field) he was ready to start ranting at the world. Unfortunately, the throbbing in his head made it extremely difficult to cuss that stupid idiot out.

Doumeiki regarded the boy on the ground impassively as a few classmates asked him if he was ok. Not too many, though. Watanuki Kimihiro was a weirdo, and the less anyone had to do with him, the better was the general attitude toward the bespectacled boy.

As Watanuki politely waved off the few inquiries his blow to the head got him, Doumeiki could see how much the spirits had affected Watanuki's dealings with the world. Nobody asked his if he was ok, because in the past his answers had often involved things that others simply couldn't see or 'just didn't exist.' Even now, when the cause of his injury was obvious and mundane, no one cared. They had gotten used to not caring, and Watanuki had gotten used to them.

Doumeiki knew that the next thing Watanuki would do was flail about and shout verbal abuse. The archer didn't want to sit through that today, as he had already gotten an earful since Himawari-chan was out sick that day. Watanuki didn't yell half as much when she was around, however, she was not there to stem the torrent of shouting that was about to begin, Doumeiki interrupted him, distracting the boy, and temporarily saving his eardrums.

"What did you see?"

"What?" Watanuki's attitude immediately switched from offensive to defensive. "What do you mean?"

"You saw something that startled you. What is it?"

Watanuki hesitated. He still wasn't used to having someone his own age know about his ability and not only believe him, but take him seriously. Some days, he half expected Doumeiki to start telling him that he was crazy or schizo like pretty much everyone else did. Well, everyone who didn't live in a half-invisible shop. "There's a red-headed man in that tree," he gestured to the tree vaguely. Pointing directly at it, he had learned, would bring attention. And that kind of attention was always something Watanuki wanted to avoid. "In a shihakusho. There's also a really buff baboon thing that has a snake tail. Can you see them?"

After gazing in the direction Watanuki had indicated, Doumeiki said, "No. They must be spirits."

"Of course! Why _else_ would I be the only one able to see them? Geeze. That guy reminds me of something, though…" Watanuki hit his fist into his palm as he recalled something. "I remember, the other day! Yuuko-san gave me the day off, and told me to go to the park."

"Did you?"

"I did!" Watanuki snapped. "I didn't mean to, though! Anyway, there was a lady there, and she was dressed the same way he is. Pretty much." He felt his face color as he recalled how… open the woman's gi had been. "And she said she was surprised I could see her. So I guess she was a spirit too."

"Seems that way."

"I wonder what he's doing here?"

"I can't see him. How should I know?"

* * *

These humans were kind of weird. Well, all humans were weird, but this group was stranger than most. Right now, Renji was watching one human in glasses flail around like a fish on dry land, shouting at another human who just stood there like the boy with glasses didn't exist. They way they acted vaguely reminded the red-headed shinigami of how Ichigo and the Quincy acted. What was his name? Oh, right Uryu Ishida.

Anyway, these two seemed to be the source of the strange clash of reiatsu, though it was hard to tell which had what reiatsu. How could he find out…?

* * *

Watanuki wasn't sure he wanted to leave the school. The strange spirits had not left yet, and he wasn't sure they were friendly. Sure the other spirit who'd been dressed like that had been friendly enough, but the thing about spirits was that even if they were friendly, _unfortunate_ things tended to happen around them.

"So they're still there?"

"Doumeiki! You jerk, don't sneak up on people!"

Doumeiki was privately astounded that Watanuki could go from contemplative to frothing with rage in the time it took to inhale. "I didn't. You just don't notice any of your surroundings. So, are they still there?"

Watanuki glared viciously at the taller boy before turning his glare back outside. "Yeah, they're still there. Why can't they leave me alone?"

Doumeiki shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not a spirit."

While Watanuki raged at that reply, Doumeiki debated whether or not he should skip archery practice to walk him to Yuuko's shop. He wouldn't like being looked after, and would whine the whole time, but if it meant that he got to the shop safely… wasn't that more important than his hearing? But, then again, was he even in danger?

"I wonder..." Doumeiki looked at Watanuki, whose mood had switched again. He looked thoughtful, now. "Rangiku-san, the spirit at the park, said that she was looking for somebody. Would he be looking too?"

"Who are they looking for?"

"Hitsugaya Toshiro."

"Never heard of him."

"Figures. You're no help what so ever," Watanuki grumbled.

"How am I supposed to know a spirit that I can't even see?"

"AARG! Just shut up! Stop being a jerk!" Privately, Watanuki knew he had a point; Doumeiki couldn't see spirits. How could he possibly know about this person- presuming Hitsugaya Toshiro was a spirit, of course. Then again, he _did_ know all kinds of stuff about the supernatural- things his grandfather had told him. "Didn't your grandfather ever tell you anything about him?"

"No." Doumeiki paused, then said, "What about Yuuko? Maybe she knows."

"I haven't gotten a chance to tell her yet," Watanuki growled. "I'm going to tell her when I get to the shop."

"Alright."

"Hmph. Whatever, I need to get to work."

Doumeiki watched as the boy who saw spirits strode away. He doubted Watanuki would let him walk with him, even if the stubborn idiot was being followed by a spirit. "I guess I'll go to practice today, then…"

* * *

The red-headed spirit was still following him, Watanuki knew that. It was even more unnerving, knowing that the strange demon monkey was following too; it was unusual for such radically different spirits to be seen together. That meant there was something Watanuki didn't know, and he had learned that it was often the unknown that presented the most dangers.

He sped up, almost breaking into a jog.

The fence wasn't too far away.

Watanuki risked a glance behind him, at the fierce looking man. Who wasn't there. Panicked, he searched the area for the strange pair, a flicker of hope rising as he wondered if they had left. That hope was extinguished as Watanuki spotted the two strange spirits not three feet away from him, standing on the fence like it was solid ground.

Startled, he jumped back with a yelp. The red head looked at him with a calculating stare, as if trying to decide something. Somehow, the look was mirrored on the face of the baboon-monkey. This close, Watanuki could see the details on the two spirits. The man had a white bandana tied around his forehead, and carried a katana in a sheath. The strange baboon with the snake tail had black, abstract markings on its arms and body. They made an intimidating pair. Or trio, if you wanted to count the snake.

"Hey, you," the man called down at him. "Can you hear me?"

Watanuki nodded nervously as he got to his feet.

"Huh. I suppose I'm not surprised. I mean, you've got some of the highest reiatsu I've ever felt in a human, and your reiatsu feels like Hollow Bait. What the hell's up with that?"

"I'm sorry, what is Hollow Bait?" Watanuki asked. He hoped that Hollow Bait was something inedible, and that these spirits wouldn't want to eat him. They had moved ahead of him, and he hadn't seen them move. If they decided that he was on the menu, there would be no escaping them.

"Doesn't matter, really. I've just been curious, and I needed a break from this mission," the spirit shrugged. The baboon-spirit shrugged as well, in time with the human spirit. Its mouth moved, but Watanuki couldn't hear anything. The red-headed spirit didn't show any outward signs that he heard the baboon either, but he waited briefly until the baboon was finished before saying, "Oh, sorry, I didn't introduce myself. Abarai Renji, Vice Captain of the 6th Division."

"Oh, er…" Watanuki hesitated. Yuuko-san had told him that knowing a birth name gave an individual power over that person. Knowing that, Watanuki wasn't sure that he wanted a random spirit having that power over him. At the same time, he didn't want to be rude to a spirit with a sword. Fortunately, he was struck with inspiration- a diversion tactic. "What about that other spirit?"

The Vice-Captain of the 6th division looked confused. "What other spirit?" he glanced around, searching for what the human had noticed that he had not. The baboon/snake copied him, looking where Abarai looked, and turning in eerie synchrony when he turned.

"The spirit standing right next to you. The one…" he paused. The phrase 'that looks like a monkey with a snake tail for a head,' he realized, sounded very rude, and the spirit in question looked as if it could pulverize him into meat jelly. Insults to such a spirit would be a Very Bad Idea. "With the black markings," he finished instead.

Both spirits stared at him for a moment while the words sunk in. Then, their eyes (all six of them) widened, with that same synchronous thing they had going on. The shock was clearly visible, even on the snake's face. "You…" the red-headed spirit finally said. "You… can see… you can see Zabimaru?" His tone sounded somewhere between awed and disbelieving.

"Is that the baboon-snake spirit standing beside you?"

"Yeah…" the spirit said slowly. "That's Zabimaru. How the hell can you see him?"

Watanuki was a little surprised at this question. Why shouldn't he be able to see Zabimaru? Wasn't he a spirit as well? "Well, I can see you," he started to say, but was cut off.

"No, that doesn't matter. You're not supposed to see zanpakuto spirits unless you're training for bankai, simple as that." The man was starting to look uneasy, and very freaked out, as he contemplated what was going on. "I _know_ I'm not training for bankai right now. So. How the hell can you see Zabimaru?"

Watanuki was used to having humans freak out about his abilities, but for the most part, spirits didn't really question him on the '_how _can you see us.' With spirits, it was generally, '_can_ you see us? Oh, really? Ok, then' and then they went through with whatever plans they had to ruin his life in some way, shape or form- er, got on with their lives. He'd never had a spirit question his ability to see other spirits before, and he really wasn't sure how to handle this. All he could think to say on the subject was the truth. "I was born with the ability to see spirits. I see what I see. That's all I know, sorry." When the man gave no response, and continued staring at him, Watanuki felt he needed to add something. "They usually try to eat me," he offered.

That got the red-head's attention. "What? Man that sucks, kid, but I suppose it figures, I guess. Especially with the way your reiatsu feels," he said, not unsympathetically.

"Er, how does my, ah, reiatsu feel?" Watanuki asked. "Like 'Hollow Bait'? What is that?"

"Well, Hollows are warped spirits of humans who eat the souls of other humans. And for some reason, something that attracted Hollows was invented, called Hollow Bait. Your reiatsu feels like the energy that Hollow Bait gives off," Renji explained.

"I… see." That was a lie, but Abarai-san didn't need to know that. There were other things that the red-headed vice captain didn't need to know- like Watanuki's real name. Yuuko-san had- "Oh crap." Yuuko-san! The shop! Work! "I'm late!" He was going to be late for work! Watanuki took off, sprinting towards the shop, not really caring if the spirits followed him; they hadn't seemed hostile at the time, and if he could get to the fence, it didn't matter if they wanted to eat him or not.

Renji briefly wondered if following the human was a good idea. It didn't last very long when he realized that the alternative to chasing the human was going back to the depressing duty of searching for Hitsugaya-taicho. Besides, a human like this one was bound to attract trouble, and by following him, Renji would be able to help him out of any trouble he might get into with Hollows. That was a shinigami's job, wasn't it? There was also the small, infinitesimal, practically nonexistent chance that this kid might actually know where Hitsugaya-taicho was.

A/N: I made up the 'Super Hollow Bait,' in case anyone cares, or couldn't tell.

I'm really sorry about the late updates, but Real Life started pistol-whipping me in the face. I had also run out of backlog chapters, so just as I needed time to actually sit down and WRITE something, Real Life decided, 'No, you don't get your time. I'm just going to sit here and rub it in your face that you're such a procrastination loser.' Most of that quote belongs to Littlekuriboh. (Who is an awesome, awesome person. If you don't know who he is, you should.) So, in the end, I'm very, very late with this update, and I've gotten more projects in my head, but don't worry, weekly updates will most likely return by the end of this month. I hope.

Please review? –hopeful look-


	8. Wish

8: Wish

Yuuko didn't often go out without Watanuki, nowadays, for a variety of reasons; if he was there, she didn't have to carry anything she might find on her trip was one of them. But, if she was brutally honest with herself, she would have to admit that going out on her own just didn't seem as fun anymore. Getting reactions out of Watanuki was as fun as it was easy, and there were too many opportunities to make the boy squawk, especially outside the house. Trips alone seemed to lack something now- and that something was a protesting Watanuki. This trip, however, had to be made, and without her 'loyal' assistant.

So, here she was, strolling down the street, following a butterfly-shaped handkerchief. It led her to a desolate looking figure, dressed all in black, carrying a sword, standing on top of a lamp post.

"Shinigami-san!" she called cheerfully as she approached, not caring if the normal humans around her heard. The woman on top of the lamp post stood to attention, looking around for the source of the call. She finally looked down, and Yuuko waved up at her. "Good afternoon, Shinigami-san!"

The shinigami jumped down, landing gracefully in front of the wish-granter. "How do you know I'm a shinigami?" she asked, glaring suspiciously at Yuuko, as if she might pull out a weapon of some kind and attack.

"Well, your red soul ribbon was one clue," she murmured. "But," her tone changed from serious to lighthearted, "I'm here on businesses."

The suspicion was still clearly visible on the shinigami's visage. "What kind of business?"

"I'm here to offer you a drink!"

* * *

Watanuki was surprised when he realized that the vice-captain and his strange baboon-snake companion were still following him. In all honesty, the boy had totally forgotten the spirits when he realized that he was late for his job. The terror of Yuuko-san's retaliation does that to a person.

By the time he _did_ realize that strange spirits were following him, it was too late to really do anything about it since he was already at the fence. Although, the part of his mind that wasn't in a frothing frenzy of panic mused, he had made it this far and neither spirit had even attempted to eat him, and he hadn't seen any other spirits since Abarai-san and Zabimaru-san showed up… maybe this was not one of the worst things that had happened to him. It might not be a good thing, but so far, no one had tried to eat him, so for now he would reserve judgement.

Renji, for his part, was starting to think that maybe this _wasn't_ such a good idea. If Matsumoto found him following a human instead of looking for her captain, she would be _pissed_. And that would be putting it mildly. He hoped she would be a long way away from where he was so that she'd never find out. That way, his life would be much more comfortable- as long as Matsumoto never, ever found out about today.

Unless he somehow managed to find Hitsugaya-taicho- then all would be forgiven, but the odds of that happening were like being attacked by a polar bear and a regular bear on the same day: it wasn't going to happen. Sadly, the chances of Matsumoto finding him were much better.

Turning a corner, Renji found out how right he was.

"It's you!" the human he had been following exclaimed as the two women standing outside a fence came into view. "From the park!"

"Aah, Watanuki-kun," cooed one of the women who had long, black hair. "I'm glad you've arrived. I was starting to think that I'd have to find a new part-time worker!" Renji, sadly, didn't really hear the woman's greeting, as he was staring with a sort of amazed dread at the other woman, who, coincidentally, was also staring back at him. Actually, it was closer to glaring. Actually, it _was_ glaring.

"So, Abarai-san," the other woman, who happened to be Matsumoto Rangiku, growled, "what exactly are you doing? Searching for Hitsugaya-taicho, I hope. Though I don't think following a human is very effective."

"Er… hi Ra-Matsumoto-san. I was, er, I was- you see…" While it was true that Renji had achieved bankai, there was still the fundamental fact that this was Matsumoto Rangiku he was facing. A very pissed-off, very worried-for-her-captain Matsumoto Rangiku. There was a reason Hitsugaya-taicho put up with her, and it wasn't her paperwork skills. "I was… hey, what are _you_ doing here?" he demanded, he brain suddenly coming up with a desperate diversion tactic.

"Something useful. Yuuko-san says she has a proposition for me." She glanced impatiently at the woman, who Renji correctly guessed was 'Yuuko-san'. She didn't appear to notice the look, however, as she seemed to be having way too much fun watching the boy in glasses rant about something. Renji had to admit, it was kinda fun to watch. The kid would flail his arms around his head like he was trying to shoo away flies.

"So, what is it? The proposition, I mean," Renji asked, trying to keep Matsumoto from prying the truth out of him; if she found out that he'd been hanging around the high school and NOT looking for her captain, she would do something that Renji would regret.

"I offered her a drink," a voice said in his ear. Renji jumped to see the Yuuko-woman smirking right behind him. Behind her, the kid with the Hollow-Bait reiatsu sulked, looking as though he had lost a familiar argument.

"A drink!"

Yuuko rolled her eyes. "Well, I had to get her attention _somehow_," she explained. "Catching her attention any other way would have been much too expensive."

_That_ made Renji blink. "Wait, you're saying buying Matsumoto Rangiku a _drink_ was cheaper than anything else you could think of? What were your other options, buying Mount Fuji?" The 6th division lieutenant couldn't help but laugh at the idea of buying the infamous Matsumoto Rangiku (who always had about ten bottles of alcohol in her office at any given time) a drink being cheaper than anything.

Yuuko's smirk only grew.

An aggravated voice from behind the group reminded Renji that that human was still there. "Don't bother asking, Yuuko-san won't give you an answer you'll understand."

Yuuko pouted at that. "Watanuki-kun, don't be mean! I always give strait answers! It's not my fault you don't understand enough of how the world works to understand me!"

Watanuki sighed. Yuuko-san was in high spirits today, and that meant trouble. Well, more trouble than usual.

"Anyway, it's time for a drink!" Yuuko-san cheered. "Watanuki-kun, lead the way!"

* * *

As the shinigami and the strange human woman had seated themselves at a table in the shop, the Watanuki kid had left to get snacks. When he returned carrying a try, he was wearing an white apron and bandana. It was a cute look, and if it were any other situation, Matsumoto Rangiku would have milked this image for all it was worth, but today, she had to find the captain. Teasing kids would have to wait.

Watanuki placed drinks in front of Renji, Matsumoto and Yuuko, but had placed two extra cups of sake next to the two shinigami.

"Watanuki, what's this?" Yuuko had asked, gesturing at the two extras as the boy tried to slip into the background.

He looked a little surprised, but then again, it was not often that one confused the Space/Time Witch. "Well, I thought that Zabimaru and, um, the lioness spirit might want some, too," he mumbled.

At this, the faint look of puzzlement turned to one of surprise. "Who?" Matsumoto mirrored the look, even if hers took a slightly astonished overtone.

"He can see zanpakuto spirits?" Matsumoto asked, looking at Renji for confirmation.

"Apparently," Renji shrugged, downing his cup of sake, looking rather unconcerned.

The surprise vanished from their host's visage, and she smirked. "Well, _that_ simplifies quite a bit."

"Simplifies what?" Matsumoto demanded.

"Introductions first, my dear," the strange woman said. "I am Ichihara Yuuko. This," she gestured around at the shop, "is my shop."

Renji took the bait. "What does it sell?"

"Wishes." Both shinigami looked skeptical, and Yuuko sighed. "No, really. I grant wishes. For the right price, of course. You," she pointed at Matsumoto, "you, are looking for someone. How are you doing that?"

Matsumoto looked guardedly at the strange person who had offered to grant her wish. "I was looking for Hitsugaya-taicho by following Hyorinmaru's reiatsu, since I can't find his."

"Hyorinmaru?"

"His zanpakuto," Matsumoto started to explain, but Yuuko-san held up one hand.

"You need not go any further. I understand."

"You can grant my wish? Find Hitsugaya-taicho?"

Yuuko Ichihara observed the desperately hopeful face before answering in her ever-careful manner. "There is nothing you could give me that I could accept as payment to grant that wish." The upset vice captain opened her mouth to protest, but Yuuko held up her hand, and whatever protest Matsumoto had halted. "I can, however, aid you in your search."

"How?" Matsumoto's desperation grasped at any chance to find her captain. It was painfully obvious now, to every one.

The smile that appeared on Yuuko's face made Watanuki shiver. Whatever she said would make his day much less pleasant.

* * *

"No! Absolutely not!" Watanuki raged quietly. The two shinigami were waiting impatiently by the fence for the part-timer; Matsumoto-fukutaicho was, by all indications getting ready to drag the poor boy with them by his hair. The part-timer in question was furiously trying NOT to go with the strange spirits to look for another strange spirit that would lead them, somehow, to yet ANOTHER strange spirit. He didn't even know what he was supposed to be looking for!

As usual, Yuuko-san was working on the assumption that he would, naturally, simply _jump_ at the chance to do whatever crazy errand her disturbed mind could come up with. Something that Watanuki did not appreciate, despite the fact that he, invariably, would do whatever it was that Yuuko-san wanted him to. The reasons varied. Sometimes it was some kind of dangling reward (which, also invariably, would turn out to be something totally different than what any normal person would assume was being offered), saying that it would reduce his debt if he did/increase his debt if he didn't, or some kind of verbal judo. It really didn't matter, because in the end, Yuuko-san always got her way, and he ended up, for reasons he could never fully comprehend until much, much later, always doing her bidding. It got old after the third time it happened. Very old.

Yuuko-san smirked. Actually, she was doing something similar to pouting, but anything could look like a smirk on Yuuko-san's face. "But, Watanuki-kun, you have to do this! It's just one little search. It's like a treasure hunt!"

"Treasure hunt my eye! And _why_ do I have to do this? Don't they have to pay first? Or later?" That had actually been bugging him. Yuuko-san was obsessed with extracting payment from people, but she had been offered payment, and she had not only DENIED it, but had neglected to mention what this was going to cost Matsumoto-san. For someone who supposedly had some kind of responsibility to keep things 'in balance,' this was highly unusual. And that was like saying that Antarctica was kind of chilly.

"Watanuki-kun, you answered your own question!" she sighed happily.

"Wait, what? But, how does-"

"Now, you'd better get going! You don't want to keep our customers waiting!" She shoved him towards the two shinigami while the luckless high school student was trying to figure out how his answers fit into his questions.

He stumbled to a halt in front of two impatient-looking shinigami, an impassive baboon-snake thing, and a pacing ash lioness. Matsumoto, arms crossed, looked at him and said, "Come on. We're wasting time!" before she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the area of the shop. He tried feebly to shake her off as they passed several people who gazed at him in open curiosity, but she either she didn't notice or she wasn't ready to let go of him because the busty shinigami's grip stayed strong.

However, Renji noticed and nudged his companion. "Ran-san, let the kid go."

"What?" She looked at him, a slightly confused look on her face.

The red-headed shinigami gestured at her hapless prisoner. "He looks weird."

"H-hey!" Watanuki huffed. Well, he was right there!

"No, I mean they can't see Ran-san dragging you, right? So..." Renji tried to get his point across.

Realization flashed across Matsumoto's face and she released the part-timer. "Oh. Right..." embarrassment followed realization across her face, quickly replaced by redoubled resolve. She turned to Watanuki. "As long you follow me to where I can feel Hyorinmaru's reiatsu, I don't care if you're cartwheeling along." The resolute mask cracked, showing desperation for a heartbeat. "I need your help. I can't find Taicho on my own," she finished.

For a breath, both Watanuki and Renji stood awkwardly next to the bereft vice-captain, unsure of what to do to comfort her. Then she abruptly grabbed the front of Renji's robes and jerked him along after her, Renji squawking in protest.

She grinned back at him. "Well, I can't really pull Watanuki-kun along, can I?" she asked impishly. "You'll have to do in his stead."

Watanuki jogged in order to keep up with the pair of speeding shinigami. Losing them would be a bad idea, since he had no idea what they could get up to if he lost sight of them, even if they were mostly focused on their search for Hitsugaya-taicho. They also seemed to be keeping other spirits away, he noticed as he caught up to the pair. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any spirits since Renji-san had shown up at his school during gym. And Yuuko-san had given him a job. He _had_ to follow them because she said so, if he ever wanted to be rid the bothersome, dangerous spirits that usually followed him.

As they neared the park, the temperature dropped. Watanuki shuddered, and so did Renji, but Matsumoto looked as determined as ever. The cold didn't seem to bother her, despite the fact that she... had the most skin exposed.

"Oh, I can see why you think Hyorinmaru is here," Renji said, looking around at the park.

Matsumoto nodded. "Yeah, I wasn't sure at first, but I've been growing more convinced. Either way..." she turned to Watanuki, watching him with a cat's laser-focus. "Either way, we get to find out right here."

Watanuki gulped. "Ah..." How was he going to explain to this woman that though he could see the zanpakuto spirits, he had _no idea what he was looking for_. He had no idea what Hyorinmaru looked like, and from what he had seen, zanpakuto spirits looked, to him, like normal spirits. If spirits could be called normal, that is. But that still didn't tell him what Hyorinmaru looked like. There was nothing that really set them off from the myriad of other spirits he saw every day. They didn't even have a consistent form, if the two he had seen were anything to go by. He opened his mouth again, preparing to speak, but the words never got past his throat. Instead, he stood and gaped at the dragon that had chosen that moment to rise its head above the treeline to look at them.

* * *

The kid could see something, Renji could tell. Mostly by the way his eyes were glued to a spot above the medium sized patch of trees that was the closest thing one could get to a forest in the city.

Rangiku-san noticed it too. "What do you see?" she demanded.

There was no reply.

"Well?" She stood directly in front of him, gripping his shoulders. "What do you see?"

He tore his gaze away from the empty-seeming patch of sky to look at the desperate shinigami. He looked very nervous, eyes flicking back and forth from Matsumoto to the patch of sky. "A dragon. A big dragon," he said, and Renji got the impression that the kid didn't really believe what he was saying.

There was no mistaking the hope that blossomed in Ran-san's face, however. "A dragon?" she asked, still not letting him go. "What does it look like?"

"It's... it's the same one I saw before," Watanuki said, almost to himself. "If it is, then, I think it's, um, made of ice."

While Renji had been unsure why Matsumoto seeing a dragon was a big thing, he understood her excited reaction to the fact that it was apparently made of ice. Every one knew that Hitsugaya-taicho practically _was_ ice. Everything about the kid screamed 'winter' from his white hair and teal eyes, to the fact that if he got mad and let his reiatsu slip it started getting cold. Hell, the kid's zanpakuto was named 'Hyorinmaru', for gods' sakes.

So, now they had found Hyorinmaru. If they were very lucky, Hitsugaya-taicho would be there, too. If they weren't... Well, Hyorinmaru was still there. That meant that the kid was at least still alive, even if it seemed like he had vanished.

And it did seem like the mini taicho had vanished. "Uh, Rangiku-san?" Renji said after a moment. "Can you-"

"No," she snapped, cutting him off. "We should get closer, though. Maybe if we can get to Hyorinmaru... Lead the way, Watanuki-kun." She shoved Watanuki forward, toward where he kept glancing. The kid looked less than pleased. He trudged forward reluctantly, looking as morose as if he were heading toward the gallows.

Renji caught up with the weird human, and nudged him. "Don't worry," he told the boy, who didn't look at all reassured. "Hitsugaya-taicho can be prickly, but he would never attack Ran-san. Never." Especially after Aizen... best not to think about that. Thinking about what that _traitor_ had done to Hinamori, and even to Hitsugaya-taicho himself (Aizen was a sick bastard though and through. What kind of person DID that to a kid? Never mind the fact that Hitsugaya-taicho was a force to be reckoned with among the ranks of the captains, he was a KID. People who did that needed to die, period) would only make him upset, and he needed to be calm and diplomatic-like when talking to the icy little captain.

Watanuki's face took on a slightly thoughtful cast. "Ah... Abarai-san," he started, but Renji cut him off.

"Call me Renji. We're searching for Hitsugaya-taicho, not at a meeting. You don't need to be all formal."

"Um, ok. Renji-san, I've been wondering about..." Here he paused, trying to order the thoughts in his head into communicable sentences. "You act almost like Hyorinmaru-san _is_ Hitsugaya-taicho, but isn't he a separate spirit? A... zanpakuto spirit?" he asked.

Matsumoto decided to input something into the conversation. "A zanpakuto does have its own spirit, but it's... a reflection," she said, trailing off, trying to think of a good way to explain it to a non-shinigami.

"Hey, Ran-san, why are we telling him this?" Renji asked. He didn't know if it was against the Rules, but telling humans about how zanpakuto work was something that nobody had ever done. Not that anyone had ever really asked before, but the knowledge of zanpakuto was not usually something that was bandied about.

"Because it might help him find Hitsugaya-taicho if he knows." She glared at him. "And he asked.

"Oh. Right."

"So, anyway," she continued, "A zanpakuto is reflection of a shinigami's soul."

Watanuki made a choking sound. He looked much paler than normal. "Sh-shi-shinigami?" he squeaked. He was terrified, but tried to hide it. Death gods? He was travailing with _death gods_?

"Calm down, kid," Renji said. "We don't kill people, that's not our job. Our job is to guide and protect the souls of those who have passed on to the afterlife."

Matsumoto was quick to calm down her Hyorinmaru-finder. "We protect the balance of life and death," she said.

"Oh." Watanuki was still pale, but he felt better about traveling with these two now. Spirits with actual jobs were much less likely to bother him, or come after his blood (Ame-Warashi being an example of this. She didn't seem to even want to talk to him, much less eat him, and she looked human like they did). And somehow, talking about keeping things in balance was kind of comforting. But even if he did have four (or was it two? This zanpakuto spirit thing was confusing.) guards, that didn't change the fact he was headed towards a really big dragon. True, dragons were supposed to be forces of protection, and good luck, but they were still very, very large carnivores, and Yuuko-san often made it a point to talk about how delicious he was to spirits.

"Yeah, anyway," Matsumoto-fukutaicho continued, either not noticing or ignoring how white Watanuki had gone. "For shinigami with strong spiritual power, they can talk with their zanpakuto, and even stronger shinigami can basically... Er, Renji-kun?"

Renji took up the explication. "You basically materialize your zanpakuto. That's how Urahara-san described it."

"Hitsugaya-taicho is a very strong shinigami."

"So," Watanuki said, "to clarify, you're saying that that dragon-"

"Hyorinmaru," Renji said in an authoritative voice.

"Hyorinmaru-san, right. So, you're saying that Hyorinmaru-san is... can... act on his own?" Renji almost felt guilty- the kid was already looking nervous, and he didn't even know that the what the step after materialization was. He would have said Watanuki-kun was paranoid, but the kid leaked Hollow-Bait reiatsu, and you were only paranoid when you _thought_ they were out to get you.

Ran-san turned on her charm at the nervous human. "Oh, don't worry about Taicho! He seems grumpy, but he wouldn't hurt us, and neither will Hyorinmaru," she burbled. Her demeanor, though, changed, and she was less enthusiastic. It was easy to tell that she was worried, but not about being attacked. "So you don't need to worry." She stood there for a moment, looking forlornly at the ground. Renji and Watanuki watched her nervously, not knowing what to do. Suddenly, she looked up, with a dangerous glint in her eye. Smirking, she rushed the two males, grabbed them and dragged them toward the forest. "Come on, boys! Let's find us a Captain!"

* * *

A/N: I'm so very, very sorry at how late this chapter is. Many, many things have happened in Real Life, not the least includes the abrupt suicide of my computer (taking everything with it) and Finals. I beg you're forgiviness, my dear readers, and I hope that this chapter appeases your anger. It ends rather suddenly, I know, but I decided to cut it off there and post it now rather than making you, my wonderful readers, wait longer. This chapter is also longer than the others, so...

I would also like to thank you for 30 favs, and 40 subscriptions, and (at the moment) almost 50 reviews. -bows- Thank you for your support. We are coming to the end of the story now, so please bear with me. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.


	9. Reunion

Chapter 9: Reunion

Ichigo wandered aimlessly through the streets of the city. It wasn't like he was really that much of an asset to the search party. Why the hell had they nagged him into doing this again? He sucked at sensing reiatsu, he didn't really know Hitsugaya-taicho, and they spent most of the time out searching for the captain, so his 'cultural expertise' wasn't really used. At all.

Well, that wasn't true. Apparently, shopping for dinner was something that the two vice captains needed a guide for. After he had seen Renji arguing with a vending machine, he'd understood why.

But, that didn't make the long boring hours of the search any more bearable. He couldn't even train during the day. He'd tried that, once. Just once.

There was a _reason_ that Matsumoto-san was a vice captain.

Because his reiatsu-sensing skills were so poor, and after weeks of no results using that method, Ichigo had decided to forgo them altogether, and just search on foot, with his eyes and ears. And voice.

"TOSHIRO! OI! TOSHIRO!"

He wasn't in his body no one could hear him, but a few of the more spiritually-aware individuals in the rush of people on the sidewalk glanced towards the substitute. Not that he noticed. He didn't care about what these people thought, anyway. They couldn't see him, and even if they could, it wasn't like he was sticking around, so even if they could see him they wouldn't be able to make trouble for him.

There wasn't any response, not that he really expected any. There hadn't been any response at all during the whole search. Rangiku-san couldn't even feel her captain's reiatsu. A yell wasn't really going to do much if that were the case. It was still worth a try, though, even if nothing came of it.

Before his uselessness could depress him further, however, Ichigo sensed both Renji and Rangiku-san. They weren't far away, but the strange thing was that there was a third reiatsu with them. It wasn't Toshiro's, but it was slightly familiar.

"_Hey King, he's back._" The Hollow's voice in his head made Ichigo jump, and slapped him with the identity of the third reiatsu signature. It was that kid from the river. The one that his inner Hollow found so disturbingly delicious. It scared him, the Hollow's hunger for the kid's soul. It had never, ever shown any inclination toward feasting on human souls in all the time he'd known it. That was the only reason Ichigo hadn't done something... drastic before the Vizared had got to him. Despite all the Hollow's desire for control, it never showed any interest in human souls, but now it was ready to challenge him for control; all for the sake of one high schooler.

Even if the kid did have high reiatsu, it made no sense. Chad had high reiatsu, so did Orehime. Not to mention all the soul reapers he hung around. The Hollow wasn't interested in them at all, except in assessing their threat level, and that was only because before he had gone to the Vizared, Ichigo had thought about how each of his friends could take him out if he lost to the Hollow inside him. But that had been a passing interest. Ichigo was firmly in control, still, and his human friends weren't here. That other guy was.

The only guy who his inner Hollow seemed interested in. Not good. Especially with the other shinigami there. It was a crime to be a Vizared, he knew. The punishment was apparently banishment or something. So what would happen if he slipped and they put two and two together and come up with Vizared? Or if he lost control and started killing people? It did not look good. Not at all.

Ichigo was paralyzed as the two urges to run toward and away from the boy fought for domination. Unfortunately, that paralysis gave Matsumoto-san and the rest of the group the chance they needed to catch up. The busty vice captain grabbed Ichigo, with an enthusiastic cry of "Ichigo!" jerking the shinigami representative back to the real world, simultaneously killing the last chance said representative had of booking it.

"Er," Ichigo said as he deliberately _didn't_ react to suddenly being grabbed while he was in the middle of having a sort of identity crisis. "Hey, Ran-san, Renji. I didn't know we were searching in a group again. What's with the kid?"

'The kid,' despite looking rather pale and ready to either puke or run for it, bristled at that comment. "Hey, I'm your age, not a kid!"

The customary frown fit easily on Ichigo's face as he looked at the human in front of him, ignoring the Hollow's suggestions to eat his soul. "Still doesn't explain what you're doing here."

"He can apparently see zanpakuto spirits," Renji explained, totally ignoring whoever-it-was. "Ran-san used him to try and find Hyorinmaru."

"Oh." Well, shit. That guy really _could_ see the Hollow then, couldn't he? "... Did it work?"

"Yes and no." Matsumoto's voice was rather cheerful with an undertone of malice that would slice through steel like it was steam. "Watanuki-kun saw Hyorinmaru, but we couldn't get to him, and I couldn't sense Taicho's reiatsu."

Matsumoto Rangiku was a scary, scary lady when she wanted to be. In the Soul Society, even after all that crap with Aizen and the other two captains, she had been drunk and partying most of the time, from what Ichigo could tell. This super-focused Matsumoto made Ichigo very glad that he wasn't the reason for Toshiro's disappearance. He almost felt sorry for whoever had done it. Almost. That person/thing/force of nature was making him spend time with this terrifying version of Matsumoto, after all.

"Why couldn't you get to the zanpakuto?" he asked instead of begging for mercy. Strangely, the high school human (Ran-san had said his name, but Ichigo was never really good at names unless the name belonged to someone who was trying to kill him, someone who was going to be killed or someone who was going to help him prevent someone being killed. As of now, the weird Hollow-Bait Human didn't fit into any of these categories) blushed and looked anywhere but at the three shinigami.

"We went into the woods and got pretty far in," Renji started explaining, gesturing back the way they had come, "but the farther we went in, the harder it was for Watanuki-kun to breathe. We didn't know how bad it was until we got to this really cold clearing and the kid passed out."

Matsumoto threw an arm around the shamefaced Watanuki. "It wasn't a total loss!" She had seen how the bespectacled high school student had been trying to will himself into non-existence from sheer embarrassment, and had decided that she was going to demonstrate that he really had nothing to be worried about. "Before we dragged him away, I noticed that the clearing ahead was covered in frost!"

"Frost." Ichigo did not sound convinced. What did frost have to do with any of this again?

"Hyorinmaru is the strongest ice-type zanpakuto in the Soul Society! I have no doubt that that's the reason the weather has been so cold." Her captain worked very, very hard for control of his considerable powers, and had met with success. However, his powers had grown exponentially since leaving the Rukongai, and leaking reiatsu now could most definitely drag the temperature down like this. The fact that he had no control over his reiatsu was something to worry about. Especially loss of control on such a huge scale. Taicho had been missing for weeks, and the drain would be getting to him eventually.

Using too much reiatsu could kill, and there were any number of tragic stories about death from reiatsu overuse. And not just the students, though they were the most common. It happened with seasoned shinigami, sometimes through not paying attention, sometimes through using a kido too advanced, and sometimes intentionally, giving their lives up to save their comrades.

Matsumoto wasn't sure why her captain had lost control so spectacularly, or how it was being blocked so well that they couldn't truly sense it, but she was going to find out, and stop it before her captain ran out of reiatsu and time.

"Yeah," Renji chimed in. "Sometimes the weather changes suddenly in the Rukongai or the Soul Society, and most people know now that it's Hitsugaya-taicho training or something."

Watanuki was passed amazement or nervousness by now. Had he not been so tired, he would have been astonished that they were searching for a being who regularly controlled the weather. Maybe it was commonplace where they came from, however, in this world changing the weather was serious buisness. It needed power to do that, which meant that if Hitsugaya-taicho was someone with the power to control the weather like that, he was not to be messed with.

"Ah." Despite (apparent) newfound understanding, Ichigo still seemed very ill at-ease. Watanuki hoped that it was that the newest shinigami was as uncomfortable with the suggestions being whispered into his ears as Watanuki was. He knew, of course, that the spirits were after him, and that they wanted to eat him. Between Yuuko-san, and the spirits themselves, it was impossible to forget. It was one thing to see a freaky blob-thing after him, glooping along, but it was quite another to watch as a spirit stood behind a boy his age, whispering about how good he smelled, and how he really should be eaten. And it wasn't an improvement.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a way out of this situation. He was stuck with the shinigami as long as this errand lasted, or at least until they got back to the shop. Once they got there it was probably going to be a moot point anyway, since the kekkai kept nasty spirits from entering. Hopefully, that spirit would qualify as a nasty spirit, thus, preventing the incredibly _creepy_ spirit from following him into the shop. Of course, it would be much better if this newest addition to the group didn't follow, which was highly unlikely, considering his luck.

'Yeah. So now we're going back to that shop, and giving that witch a piece of my mind!" Matsumoto's sentence had started with a reasonable tone, however somewhere around the middle, vicious venom had crept in. By the end, the rest of the group was quite ready to break and run. They stood speechless, trying to figure out something to say that wouldn't tempt the touchy female in front of them to take her frustration out on them. Before they had to chance the roulette, Matsumoto grabbed Watanuki again, and started marching down the street. She called back behind her, "Well? Are you two going to stand there all night or what?"

Renji and Ichigo exchanged glances that mingled relief and exasperation before following her. Watanuki could be heard weakly protesting, "Um, Matsumoto-san, the shop is the other way!"

* * *

Vice Captain of the Tenth Division Matsumoto Rangiku was walking the fine line between turning that shop and everything in it into sawdust and finding the nearest bar to pickle her liver. It had been somewhere around three weeks since the Captain had gone missing, and now the best lead she'd gotten had turned out to be a dead end, almost literally. She didn't want to take it out on the kid- he genuinely wanted to help her; his actions were proof of that- but it was hard not to blame him for causing this latest search to fail. What she had to focus on was the fact that with this boy she had come the closest to finding the Captain she had ever come.

There was also the fact that that particular fact made the failure that much more devastating. The taste of success (or at the very least, real progress) was so close. Having it torn out of her grasp at the last second had been heart-wrenching. But, even then, she wasn't about to let this kid die. For one, if he had died, she would have had to find him all over again in order to do his zanpakuto-seeing trick, and even then, there was the chance that he wouldn't have it in the afterlife. Secondly, even if she had managed to find Taicho, the Captain would have been extremely disappointed in her. He wouldn't want to be found at the expense of anybody's life. Oh, and it would have been incredibly cruel, plus, Renji wouldn't have let her.

Matsumoto sighed. This search was wearing on her, on her nerves and on her mind. That last reason should have been first. In normal circumstances, it would have. In normal circumstances, her Captian would be in some reasonably known location, not another freakin' dimension!

It was a depressing line of thought, but she really couldn't stop thinking about her Captain's absence. The fatigue and nightmares probably weren't helping things, either. He'd been there, and then he'd not been there. Vanished, disappeared, all that cliched bullcrap. Matsumoto figured that it was her guilt that was the factor that pushed her over the edge of sane searching, and into the moronically unrealistic methods and hours of searching. Her loyalty pushed her to search until her feet bled, but that little voice in the back of her head that whispered, '_He might be dead, gone forever, and he never really __got a chance to enjoy himself as a captain, all thanks to your lazy ways,_' spurred her to keep going until someone intervened.

She couldn't tell the others about this. Renji sure as hell didn't steal his captain's free time, and neither did Ichigo. Ichigo didn't even have a captain!

All the times she had skipped out on doing her work, knowing her Captain would do it for her in order to set a 'good example for relaxation' crowded to the front of her mind. She knew that she really should keep up her energy, keep looking positive for the others, especially Watanuki-kun, but she was tired, and today's failure was still bitingly fresh in her mind.

Rangiku had denied herself a good wallow in self-pity since her captain had disappeared, so she decided that now was a good time to catch up. She continued to brood over every perceived mistake she had ever made in regards to her captain as the Hitsugaya-finding group meandered morosely through the streets back to Yuuko's shop.

Watanuki was probably the second most miserable member of the group. Not really a happy person in normal settings (since 'normal' for him involved spirits attempting to eat him, chasing optional) he was certainly more upset than usual at that moment. The guy they had run into on the street had indeed decided to join them, and so had the creepy white spirit. Mute spirits were one thing, but having the spirit actually saying things like 'Come on, let's eat him- he's tasty!' right behind him was straining the limits of what he could stand. Working in Yuuko-san's shop had upped his (already admittedly high) weirdness tolerance, but the muttering white guy was really pushing it.

Not being able to breathe freely wasn't helping either. He hadn't noticed it until the adrenaline rush from seeing the dangerous white spirit had worn off, but there was something around that was making it hard for him to breathe. The main suspect was the white spirit, since that seemed to be the only truly malevolent thing around. Whatever was causing it, breathing wasn't getting any easier as he walked with the three shinigami to the shop. It wasn't getting any harder, which was good, but having an easy supply of oxygen to one's brain was a great comfort in times when one's highly sharpened 'flight-or-fight' instinct is made even worse by the macabre whisperings right behind you.

As for the Inner Hollow, he was making life very difficult for his Outer Human. Shinigami. Whatever.

Basically, Ichigo was not happy about how things were. Here he was, with two highly-ranked vice-captains and a nervous looking kid who could apparently see (AND HEAR) his annoying Inner Hollow. The right words from the kid, and they'd know he was a Vizared. Which was Not A Good Thing in the Gotei 13, apparently, judging from the group of banished, disgruntled former-Shinigami he'd met. He wasn't exactly sure what would happen to him if they found out, but it probably wouldn't be good.

While he was pretty sure that these two wouldn't exactly rat him out to Captain-Captain, (he knew Renji wouldn't, even if it was against the rules. For Renji, rules were only followed if he wanted to follow them, as seen during Rukia's rescue. Rangiku he didn't know about so much, but she didn't seem to mind getting drunk in the middle of the day) however, Ichigo felt that this was something you didn't let other people really know about. And even if they didn't tell anyone, someone else might weasel the information out of them. Anyway, you could never be too careful. So, Kurosaki Ichigo was about as nervous as Kurosaki Ichigo could really be. He wanted to make the kid promise to not tell anyone about the Hollow.

What made him nervous was actually using tact to deal with this. The kid looked ready to bolt, shooting glances at the irksome Hollow every now and then. Ichigo knew that if he walked up to the kid and took care of this problem the way he dealt with most of his problems with his peers in high school, the guy (whatever his name was) was probably likely to get the hell out of dodge. Ichigo knew he was intimidating, with his scowl and his strange hair, and that was without the huge-ass sword strapped to his back. Ergo: tact.

Except, Ichigo wasn't all that good with tact. Which lead to the problem of 'how to talk to this person without scaring him'. And that was with 'tact'. Only, he wasn't good at 'tact'. Which lead to...

A really awkward cycle, and a Hollow that was now laughing its ass off. Ichigo vaguely wondered what the kid made of that.

* * *

Watanuki had never been so happy to be at the shop. While the fence had, sadly, _not_ kept the super-creepy white spirit out, it had removed whatever-it-was that had been making it hard to breathe, which was very nice.

Matsumoto-san had been very gung-ho about the idea of finding Yuuko-san and 'shaking that deceptive -blank- until she tells me where Taicho is!' she had fortunately been talked out of that plan. However, all agreed that they did need to talk to Yuuko-san, so Watanuki had been sent to go find her.

"Yuuko-san?" he called, through the back of the shop. "Where are you?"

"She's not here."

Watanuki jumped at the sudden grumpy sound of Taicho's voice. "What the hell!" he gasped at the diminutive spirit. "Don't do that! And what do you mean, 'She's not here?' She can't leave, she has customers!"

The childlike spirit did not look the least bit remorseful. His slightly disgruntled look did not change as he elaborated on his previous sentence. "Well, I mean she's back in one of the storage rooms. She said she's checking on something. She'll be out soon, but we have to serve tea." His expression changed from mildly disgruntled to slightly petulant. Taicho did not like serving customers. He seemed to conciser it beneath him, somehow.

Watanuki sometimes wondered about this attitude; it gave an insight into whatever culture Taicho had come from (Watanuki didn't know much at all about spirits' culture, or if they even had one) but sometimes it was just frustrating to try and shove the little brat out there with a tea tray. Especially when he had to climb up onto the roof or into a tree where the white haired child had been hiding to do it.

Luck had decided to give Watanuki a break, even if it was a minuscule one, and Taicho was cooperating as much as he ever did. That meant that the spirit did everything he was supposed to, but his attitude made it seem like an uphill battle to just get the tray in his hands.

Watanuki headed out first, holding the tea tray, (Taicho wasn't allowed to carry hot drinks that were meant for persons other than himself, since things had a habit of losing heat at a rapid rate around the small spirit) and was heading back to see what had been taking Taicho so long- he should have been right behind the high school boy with the snacks. Before Watanuki could open the sliding door, however, it jumped across the threshold revealing Taicho, holding the snack tray.

Stepping aside, Watanuki glanced at the three shinigami, wondering if Taicho's presence would bother them at all. He wasn't sure how such human-like spirits reacted to each other. They didn't seem to be able to sense Taicho like they could sense the person they had been searching for. The newest member of the search party was glaring at his cup, (hopefully trying to ignore the malicious whispers that were being hissed into his ears) Renji-san was shooting a glance at Matsumoto-san who was sipping her tea wither her eyes closed. None of them seemed to even know that Taicho was in the room.

Until he set the tray of snacks down, that is.

There was a crash as Matsumoto's teacup slipped from her now-numb fingers. Tea pooled on the table, and gently dripped down onto her lap and the floor, but she gave no signs of noticing.

She had opened her eyes, ready to tell the boys the next stage of the plan, only to have that plan promptly implode as she spotted the figure in front of her.

"Taicho?" she whispered through lips that were about as numb as her fingers as she stared at her lost captain, who was looking at her in a vaguely worried way, as he picked up some of the bigger pieces of the broken tea cup.

Ichigo and Renji, who had glanced up at the sound of breaking china, also gaped at the person before them.

"Yes?" Hitsugaya-taicho said in a tone that would have been labeled 'weirded-out' if it had more energy. "Can I help you?"

"Taicho," Matsumoto gasped again. Before the spirit in question could respond, he was swept up into a bone crushing hug. "I found you! I found you!"

He struggled out of the hug, gasping for breath, staring wild-eyed at the lunatic who had grabbed him. "Wh-what?" he gasped, trying to regain the breath that had been squeezed from his lungs. "What are you talking about?"

Renji's cup clattered to the table as Rangiku's smile started flickering out like a dying light bulb. "What are you saying, Taicho?"

"And how do you know my name? Did I know you?"

Matsumoto knelt down to the short spirit's level. "You don't remember me? Or Ukitake-taicho? Or Hinamori-chan?" she asked, though she was almost afraid to.

Taicho shook his head. He was immediately engulfed in another hug, this one less rib-cracking, but something about the way this familiar-stranger wrapped her arms around him made the tough-as-nails kid want to cry. When he heard her whisper, "Captain, I am so sorry," he did.

* * *

A/N: Please don't hate me for taking so long, but a) there have been any number of reasons I couldn't post this chapter, including job-hunting, no internet access, and lazyness, b) We're getting to the good bits of the story. The end of this chapter, and the next chapter contain scenes that started this whole thing. Yes, I wrote an ENTIRE FIC _just_ to have these scenes. Yes, I'm going to do it again. Why are you getting a straightjacket?  
But, if you're not too mad at me, please leave a review, including PLEASE what you liked, and what you didn't. I would like to make these next chapters the best, and I need your help to do that! So, take some time, drop a review and get a better chapter sooner!


	10. Venture

Chapter 10: Venture

It was unsettling to watch the childlike spirit cry in silence like that. It was almost frighting in its unnaturalness. From his position by the open door where he had been through the entire confrontation, Watanuki couldn't see Taicho's (Hitsugaya-taicho's) face, but from the way the kid's shoulders were shuddering it wasn't hard to guess. And there was no way that laughter had any place here.

The tears stopped as quickly as they had come, though and the pale spirit was pulling himself out of Matsumoto-fukutaicho's arms. She let him go reluctantly, wiping the tears off of her own cheeks. "I'm glad you're alright," she said.

"Me too," Renji said, reminding the other vice-captain that the rest of the world still existed. "But- and I really, really hate to kill the mood- what do we do now? We've got Hitsugaya-taicho, but he can't remember you. Or anything about himself, apparently. How are we going to get his memories back?"

"I think I can help there." Yuuko-san made her entrance, gliding though the open sliding door in a red kimono with a blue obi decorated with all the phases of the moon, her hair held up with a circular white ornament with what looked like red icicles dangling from it.

"You!" Matsumoto rounded on the witch. "You lying bitch! You had Taicho here the whole damn time, and you never said anything!" She gripped the hilt of her sword, ready to draw when Hitsugaya-taicho grabbed the edge of her sleeve.

"Don't." He said bluntly. "Let her explain herself."

The sorceress smiled at the diminutive figure. "Thank you, Taicho. This does you credit." His frown deepened. "But, I do have an explanation. Well, less an explanation and more of a wish."

Matsumoto's hand didn't leave the sword, but her grip had relaxed, allowing blood to flow back into once-white knuckles. Hitsugaya's hand still gripped her sleeve, however. "Oh? Whose wish?" she asked.

"Hitsugaya-taicho's, although it is not so much a wish as payment for services rendered," Yuuko explained. "You see, he has been working in my shop for a few weeks, and he has accumulated some credit to his name."

"Are you going to give him back his memories?" Ichigo asked.

"To do that, he would have to pay more than he had, or could ever accumulate by working here. Hitsugaya-san has been stripped of himself. Restoring that would cost the ultimate price, especially for a shinigami. And that is a price I could not accept. No," she continued, "Instead, I am going to tell you how Hitsugaya-san can regain himself."

"And how can 'Hitsugaya-san' do that?" Taicho asked in a scathing tone, annoyed at being spoken over.

"You need to find your zanpakuto again," Yuuko informed him. "Regain that, and you will regain your memories. You must do this alone. However, the others may come along, and I will send Watanuki-kun to guide you."

"What?" Watanuki's startled voice echoed through the room, bolstered into everyone's notice by the slightly panicked edge.

* * *

Watanuki had quickly retreated into the safety of the kitchen while Yuuko-san spelled out how much help Matsumoto-san was allowed to give, knowing that Yuuko-san's customers didn't come back here. True, Yuuko-san was making him lead the way to that creepy dragon again, however in the kitchen he could take refuge in the mundane details of the room. Cleaning the dishes and cups, boiling water for more tea, and keeping an eye on the different snacks and dinner preparations drove out the glaring fact that soon he would be soon thrown to the see-through wolves.

He heard the sound of the door sliding open and turned, ready to shoo Maru, Moro or Yuuko-san out of the kitchen while he was working, but almost dropped the ladle he was holding when he saw the figure filling the doorway.

"Those two girls are really weird," Kurosaki Ichigo said, looking about as happy as Watanuki at the fact he was there. "They're like walkie-talkies for that one lady."

"You mean Yuuko-san?" Watanuki offered nervously, hoping that the fact Yuuko-san had let the guy though her house into the kitchen he wasn't going to be devoured.

"Yeah. Her. She said I could talk to you about this."

There was a frightened-rabbit silence with Ichigo looking at the sink and Watanuki staring at the door. (Not directly at the guy, in case that was a mistake. Even though he looked human, he was a shinigami who had a murderous spirit hissing in his ear. Not upsetting him was a good way to stay alive.) It didn't help matters that Ichigo had effectively trapped Watanuki in the kitchen and, thanks to the gleeful spirit, everyone knew.

After a few impossibly long moments of deafening silence broken only by the gleeful pleadings of the negative exposure Ichigo, the shinigami Ichigo said, "You can hear it, can't you?"

"Um?" It wasn't a real word, but Watanuki was too busy preventing the fight-or-flight response to really talk.

"The Hollow. You can see him too, right?"

"Um, the spirit behind you that's you only white?"

"Yeah."

"I can see him," Watanuki confirmed cautiously. "And hear him."

Ichigo sighed and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Ok, listen. I need your help. Um. Could you not talk about the Hollow? Just, don't say anything?" Ichigo wasn't the best at reading faces, but even he could tell that that request did not sit well with the person in front of him.

"Why?"

"Because, it's kind of illegal, and I have no idea what they'd do to me. Banishing me wouldn't really work, because I live in the Real World, but I'm pretty sure they'd try to do something," Ichigo said, trying to get his point across with tact while trying not to ramble. This was harder than it looked. Usually, he was the one getting explained at. "I won't let him take over, so he won't hurt you. Just... don't mention him? There's a war coming up, and I want to help. I won't be able to do that if they've executed me. And if they manage to banish me outside of Karakura Town, I won't be able to protect my family."

Watanuki contemplated the plea silently. He sounded sincere, and there was the fact that he'd managed to pass though the kekkai. The spirit still made him want to bolt, though. However, the reasons Ichigo had were good ones. Watanuki's parents had died long ago, but he still knew that if they were alive he'd want to protect them. He knew that if he had to go to war to protect Himawari-chan, he would. Not being able to... But, one thing bothered him. "Don't you trust Matsumoto-san and Abarai-san?"

At this, Ichigo looked guilty. "I do, but... this whole thing is weird, and messy and complicated. I know I can trust Renji, but I haven't known Ran-san for very long. Yeah, I've been here looking for Hitsugaya-taicho with her for like three weeks, but she's been totally focused on finding her captain. Nothing else. It's hard to get to know her like that."

"I see." There wasn't much Watanuki could say after that.

"So," Ichigo said after a moment, "could you just not mention this to anyone?"

Watanuki nodded, slightly reluctantly. "I guess. Now, if you're done, will you get out of the kitchen?"

* * *

After the two little girls with strange hair had taken Ichigo out into the hall, Matsumoto turned to Yuuko and asked, "So, Hyorinmaru is guarding Hitsugaya-taicho's memories or something?"

"Not precisely," Yuuko answered. "However, Hitsugaya-san's memories are bound to his zanpakuto."

The newly-renamed Hitsugaya frowned. He was being talked over again. He did not like this at all. It felt not only as though he were being treated as a child, but it also gave him the uncomfortable feeling that he just wasn't there anymore. Not remembering who he was these weeks (the only ones he could remember) had left him feeling lost and faded, like he was going to vanish at any time. Just disappear into thin air. And as the weeks went by and that hole in being seemed to get larger and larger, the feeling persisted, even invading his dreams during the frequent naps he took in order to continue functioning.

Now some people had shown up claiming they knew him and had been searching for him, and it seemed that Yuuko-san had known all along who he was- or at least how he could regain his identity, and he was still being ignored and spoken over. He felt like an emptying sink with water swirling away down the drain, steadily becoming less and less until nothing was there. The prospect of becoming a hollow nothing frightened him, and he lashed out, hoping to be noticed.

"Hey!" he snapped. "Stop talking over me! I'm right. Here. And I have a few questions."

Matsumoto, or whatever her name was, blushed and glanced away. His former landlady raised an elegant eyebrow and said, "Oh? And what are these questions?"

"They're not for you," he said bluntly. "You can't charge me for them." She smirked. He ignored it and turned to the spirits who claimed to know him, folding his arms. "Alright. First question: What. The hell. Is my name?" Regaining his memories was an important thing, however his time at the shop had taught him that names were also important. With one, you could apparently lay a hold on a person's soul, and that was exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to grab his own soul, keep it fixed in reality and keep it from fading away. Keep it from the hollowness that threatened.

The red haired man looked sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck. Matsumoto bowed. "I apologize, Hitsugaya-taicho. I was lax in my duties, and I have neglected you. Your name is Hitsugaya Toshiro, captain of the Tenth Division, of the Gotei 13." She rose from her bow tugging on the ends of her scarf in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Taicho. I forgot that you didn't even know your own name." She looked like she almost wanted to cry again.

"Thank you," Hitsugaya Toshiro said. It was a good name, he decided, and he felt more solid already. "My next question is: who is Hyorinmaru, and what is a zanpakuto?" It was technically two questions, but it counted, dammit. Especially since he was a captain, and they were both vice-captains. Or so it seemed.

That question seemed to shock them. Both Matsumoto and Renji started. "Geez," Renji muttered, "I know he can't remember his name, but this is just..."

"This is what?" snapped Toshiro.

"A zanpakuto is a reflection of a shinigami's soul," Matsumoto explained. "You can't even remember the name of yours; that's... not good, Taicho."

Toshiro snarled. "What about this situation _isn't_ 'not good'?" he demanded. For every step forward he took two steps back, it seemed. He'd gotten his name back, only to find out that he was in deeper trouble than he realized. There were people here who knew him, but they couldn't help, not really. Yuuko had said as much. And he didn't want people who cared about him around when he fell.

Matsumoto looked contrite. "I know, Captain." There wasn't much more she could say.

"I suppose actually being able to do something about your amnesia isn't a good thing, either, then," Yuuko mused out loud. She looked nonchalant, sipping tea and looking into middle distance, but underneath that serene facade, Toshiro suspected that the wish broker was enjoying this.

Toshiro also suspected that is was good that he would probably be leaving one way or the other now, since he was obviously spending way too much time listening to Watanuki's rants.

"It might be if we were doing anything," he retorted. "But we're not. If I have to find my zanpakuto, Hyorinmaru, I need to know what it looks like. And I don't. 'Reflection of your soul' isn't a good description."

"All the zanpakuto take the form of blades when they're sealed," Yuuko said, still feigning disinterest.

Matsumoto nodded. "She's right. This," she said, as she picked up her sheathed sword off the floor, "Is Haineko, my zanpakuto."

"Hyorinmaru is like that, only longer and blue," Renji put in.

"And this," Matsumoto tapped the three point hand guard that looked almost like a cat's head, "Is a four-pointed star."

"I see." And strangely, he could, in a hazy, half-dream way- taller than he was, and reassuringly cold- though he really didn't understand.

"Wonderful," Yuuko said, clapping her hands together. "And here comes Kurosaki-kun! Is Watanuki-kun almost done with the snacks?" she asked as the grumpy-looking shinigami entered the room.

"I don't know," he shrugged.

Renji tried to figure out what was going on in his friend's head. The kid seemed much more relaxed after his trip to the kitchens, but he was also strangely subdued. He wished he had more time to figure out what was going on with him, but there just wasn't enough time. Ultimately, they were on a deadline. They couldn't stay here, and that was the sad truth. Even if they had to leave Hitsugaya-taicho behind, they had to be back before the war started. They all knew it, especially Rangiku-san. If they had had more time, she might also have picked up on Ichigo's strange melancholy, but all her attention was focused exclusively on her captain. Renji had grown accustomed to looking after the small search party; that was why he had picked up on Ichigo's odd mood, even if he couldn't really do anything about it.

"Did you guys figure out what Toshiro has to do, yet?" he asked. "I mean, more than before."

"No," Hitsugaya said dryly, "although we have established that I know less than I should about zanpakuto."

Ichigo blinked as he put that together, taken aback by the lack of the usual reprimand of 'It's 'Hitsugaya-taicho!'. Then he hissed through his teeth. "Rough," he said in sympathy.

"Apparently," Hitsugaya said in the same dry tone. "I can't remember."

Yuuko broke the tension that had been creeping up by saying, "As soon as Watanuki-kun comes back with the snacks, you can leave."

"Why can't I just get Watanuki and go?" Hitsugaya demanded.

"Because I need something to eat to keep my strength up!" she cooed.

The white haired shinigami sighed. He didn't want to wait, but he hoped that since he had waited almost a month to get his memories back a few more minutes wouldn't hurt.

* * *

Watanuki shivered. They were in the forest, yet again, and yet again, it was too cold, and getting colder. The pressure that made it hard to breathe was also increasing, this time it seemed faster than before. He assumed it had something to do with the white spirit, the Hollow that somehow was Kurosaki's.

The group walked in somber silence as the walked deeper into the woods. It had been this way since they had left the shop, Yuuko-san trilling a cheerful goodbye, talking about watching out for webs.

They marched on until Watanuki had to stop. He wanted to go on further, but he knew that he would pass out, and he had to point Taicho- er, Hitsugaya-taicho in the direction of the dragon. "It's that way," he said, gesturing towards the large ice dragon that was looking very intently at their group. Now that Watanuki knew what it was, and more importantly, that it wasn't interested in him, he was able to feel more comfortable with the spirit.

Taicho nodded and started off in that direction immediately, not looking back to see if anyone was following him.

Not that they were. The three shinigami that stayed behind watched intently as their child-sized captain disappeared into the woods, shifting nervously as they did so. Before they had been allowed out the door, Yuuko-san had reminding them at least three times that they were not, under any circumstances, to follow Hitsugaya.

Watanuki could tell that all three hated that idea. He did too. He might not have really liked the grumpy, pint-sized spirit, but they had been allies in keeping Yuuko-san relatively sober, and he knew that he would miss the help once it was gone.

"Are you sure we can't go with him?" Kurosaki asked.

"Positive," Watanuki sighed. "If Yuuko-san stresses something that much, you had better listen."

* * *

It was colder here, but that was ok. It was more than ok, actually. The _cold_ enveloped him in a sense of _welcome-friend-home_ Though he didn't understand it, he knew on some instinctual level that this _cold_ wouldn't hurt him.

He tracked the _cold _to a thicket of trees and bushes, the frost covered grass crackling beneath his feet. He stopped at the edge of the thicket. Somehow he could tell that there was something there. There were spiderwebs on the trees, he noted. A lot of them.

Something moved, high above his head. A voice came from inside the thicket. "Oh, it seems that we have company." A woman's voice. As if in response, he could feel a low rumbling growl in his head. Hitsugaya walked into the thicket, pushing through web and branches.

The center of this thicket was empty of vegetation other than grass, but it was covered in still more webs, larger and more numerous than he had ever dreamed possible.

And hanging in the center was a long katana.

Two thick strands of web suspended the sword about a meter off the ground. Still more web cocooned the sheath of the sword, and the handle. However, the points of the hand guard were still visible.

_Hyorinmaru?_

There was another rumble in his head, affirmative, somehow.

Toshiro walked forward towards what was his. As he laid his hand on the hilt, a person descended from the canopy, tutting.

"I really can't have that," she said. The same voice as before, but now Toshiro could put a face to the voice. Heavy-lidded eyes with long thick lashes stared back at him as the woman somehow stood on a thick strand of spiderweb, long blonde hair swinging to the side as she tilted her head. "No, even if you are a child, I can't have that. Or rather, you can't."

"Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you mean?"

"Me? I am called Jorogumo by some. You can call me that as well. And I'm afraid that I have to stop you from getting that sword," she said. It was like she was trying to enjoy this. Toshiro heard amusement in her voice, but most of it seemed false- forced.

He frowned. "Why? That's my sword."

"Hm... what should I tell you?" Jorogumo mused, tapping her chin with a finger.

"The truth."

"In that case... I am paying somebody back. One good turn deserves another."

"Who?" What enemies did he have that he couldn't remember? That caused this amnesia? Who wanted him out of the way so badly?

Jorogumo smiled, a sly smile that spoke of secrets and misguiding silk. "A name wouldn't mean anything to you, would it? He's an ambitious man, though. Resourceful, too. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to find out how to... get me on his side." She paused. "I like that resourcefulness."

Toshiro sure as hell didn't. He had hated this empty feeling that ate at his soul, and the incessant _loneliness_ that had plagued him without reason.

Now, though, he had his answer. He knew what he had to do, what- who he had to find, and nothing was going to get in his way. Especially not some overgrown spider.

Anger spiked, and in his head the dragon roared rage and defiance. Ice grew in jagged lines along the silk strands. Toshiro jerked the katana towards himself and the web that had kept it suspended shattered.

"Oh dear," Jorogumo murmured, not looking very distressed. "Ice and spider web do not go well together." She leaned forward, and suddenly she was a breath away from Toshiro. "This I like," she told him, smiling. He jerked back, instinctively swinging the sheathed katana at her, however the angle was awkward, and she grabbed the sheathed blade easily, wrenching it from his grasp.

"No!"

She rose up away from him on her strand. "Really, boys should be more careful of their toys," she told him, swinging the sword on a new string of web.

He growled at her, snatching at what was, essentially, his soul; or part of it. Ice erupted along that strand as well. Momentum shattered the web, and the sword fell to the ground. Toshiro picked it up, ice covering the cocooning web along the blade. It shattered at his touch.

Drawing the sword- Hyorinmaru- he faced the spirit that was opposing him. He hadn't felt this energetic in weeks. A familiar presence stirred in his mind.

_Toshiro_

_Hyorinmaru_

No other greeting was necessary. They knew each other, though Toshiro wasn't exactly sure how yet, but he knew the other in his mind, and embraced it.

"Reign over the frozen heavens, Hyorinmaru!" he yelled, and ice exploded in the clearing, coating everything as memory rushed back. He was Hitsugaya Toshiro, the genius captain of the tenth division, youngest captain to ever hold the rank. He remembered Matsumoto, Abarai, Kurosaki, and _Momo_ and _Grandmother_. And the war, and bankai, and- and- everything.

It was disorientating and dizzying, but also stabilizing at the same time. He knew who he was, knew what he was, where he was going and where he had come from. The past was no longer a haze, it was filled with sad, horrible and wonderful things. It was beautiful.

Jorogumo stood on her thread, watching the devastation serenely. "My, my, my. Ice and spider wed really do go ill together." Ice crackled along the webs as they shattered, one by one filling the clearing with falling ice.

"Well?" he demanded. "Aren't you going to try and stop me?"

She looked at him, as if just noticing he was there. "Hm? No, I have too much to do."

"Aren't you fulfilling a debt?"

"I was told to hide your identity and stop you from reclaiming it. I was never told how many times I had to do that." Indifference colored her voice as she observed the effect ice had on her precious webs.

Hitsugaya laughed out loud at that. Cunning lady, cunning spirit. She had found quite an effective loophole. He sheathed Hyorinmaru and walked out of the frosted clearing.

* * *

AN: Hello to my dear readers! Thank you for being so patient with me through this whole thing. I really appreciate it. I also appreciate all the wonderful reviews you gave me!

I hope that bit with Ichigo and Watanuki cleared up any ooc-ness that may have been going on. If it increased ooc-ness, somebody needs to tell me, because I seriously need to learn how to write those characters better.

The bit about names is actually xxxHolic cannon, from the first chapter. Yuuko comes across really, really creepy right about then. XD

Jorogumo was fun to write. I seriously love her outlook on life. Her webs are burning around her and she says 'Oh dear, foxfire and webs don't go well together.' On one hand, that lack of reaction cracks me up. On the other, it just shows how in control she thinks she is if having everything burn down around her is some kind of 'minor inconvenience.' Also, her 'I like this/I don't like this' ideas. From the philosophic and psychologic point of view, I do believe that lady kicks ass. (Please note, I know very little psychology or philosophy. Thank you.)

I would like to say now something that I really should have said about ten chapters ago: this story takes place some time before the 'Spider's Revenge' arc in xxxHolic, and shortly before Orehime got kidnapped in Bleach. (I think. I lost where exactly it fit in the Bleach timeline when my last computer died. Who remembers that? -author raises hand-)

Last things: 1) There are only a few chapters left for this story, so I'm starting to think more about my next project. I have a poll up on my page, and you can vote for your favorite option. (If 'another crossover' wins, I'll have another poll up with a bunch of my crossovers on it that you can vote for.) This poll will be open until I complete this fic. So go vote. 2) Please review, tell me what you liked, what you hated and anything I might have gotten wrong! Feedback= quicker, better writing!


	11. All's Well

Chapter 11: All's Well

For Rangiku, waiting was hard when she wasn't allowed to have alcohol, or chat. Before and during some official functions, she would drive her captain up the wall while trying to keep boredom at bay. Today, however, she _wished_ she was bored. Today, waiting was hard for an entirely different reason. It seemed like days had passed since her captain had been eclipsed from her sight by trees, and though she knew that her captain could take care of himself, she couldn't stop worrying.

Rangiku believed that her captain had potential to be the strongest person Soul Society had ever seen. She had seen him take on Hollows and Arrencarr. Had seen him climb from a brat from the Rukongai to a highly skilled and respected captain- the youngest captain in the history of Soul Society. She knew that Hitsugaya-taicho hated being treated as a child, hated being thought of as a child, it was a fact that was hard to escape. He was a child. He hated that fact, but Matsumoto loved it. If her captain shone this brightly at such a young age, what could he accomplish when he grew?

But even as she relished that question, she feared that she would never get to know its answer. It was terrifying beyond words to see her beloved superior in such a weakened and disoriented state. It was even more mind-numbing to realize that they had just sent her weakened, amnesiac child captain into a situation that no one was sure he would walk out of. Without a weapon, no less! She knew Hitsugaya's weakest art was hand to hand combat, and now it was all he had to protect himself with.

She was practically frothing at the mouth with worry, and she knew it, but the others weren't faring much better. Even Watanuki, who had only known Hitsugaya as 'Taicho' was worried for the well-being of the small spirit.

They felt eternity end several times, worry mounting until a figure emerged from the dissipating mist.

Matsumoto was the first to recognize it. "Taicho!" she cried, flinging herself onto the small figure, which struggled and offered muffled protests. She held her captain at arms length and looked him up and down. "Are you alright? What happened? Are you hurt? You found Hyorinmaru- is he alright?"

After re-oxygenating his brain, Hitsugaya snapped, "Getoff, Matsumoto. I'm fine. I'm not hurt, and you can find out after I file a report."

The enthusiastic vice-captain paused in her inspection. She looked hard into her captain's eyes, then started crying. "You remember!" she cried, pulling her superior once again into a tight embrace. She wanted to scold him, to chide, 'Don't you ever worry me like that again!' But he was once again her captain, and she couldn't give orders to her superiors.

This time, Toshiro didn't fight it. "Yeah," he said quietly, "I'm back." He let his head fall against his vice-captain's shoulder, breathing in the once again familiar smell of _ashssakecatclothing_ that was Rangiku's. Her arms shook, and he wanted to tell her, 'Don't worry, I won't ever hurt you like this again,' but he couldn't. Part of their duty was to understand that sometimes people don't come back. This understanding was even more important now than ever since the start of the war. He couldn't lie to Matsumoto, saying that he wouldn't disappear again, because every mission there was always the chance that he wouldn't come back. False hope was a cruel deceiver, and it would hurt worse later than any comfort it would bring now.

Off to the side, the rest of the group watched, Watanuki feeling slightly awkward at witnessing such an emotional scene. Renji and Ichigo didn't have so many inhibitions. "Hey, you two, this reunion is cute and all, but we should get back to the shop," he said. "There are a lot of things to do, people to see..."

"Hinamori!" Toshiro struggled out of Rangiku's hug again as he realized that he was neglecting his childhood friend.

"Alright, Taicho, we'll go back to the shop. I hope Yuuko knows how to get back, cuz I forgot."

"WHAT?"

The shinigami slipped easily back into their roles as the world slowly, comfortingly righted itself around them.

LINE BREAK

The witch was waiting for them in the main room, with tea and snacks ready for all of them when they returned. "Welcome back," she said demurely, sipping her tea. "I see you've succeed, Hitsugaya-taicho."

"You knew the whole time." It wasn't a question. He retained the memories of working in the shop during the terrible period of weeks when everything that had made him who he was had been missing.

"I knew what you were, yes, but not your name."

"What would the payment have been for helping me?" Lacking any real knowledge of anything else, he had observed the goings-on of the shop, and had quickly learned Yuuko's business practices. In a shop that could grant _any_ wish, price was the only limiter.

"Your zanpakuto." Hitsugaya's hand reflexively gripped Hyorinmaru's hilt. He knew Yuuko would never try and take something that was not hers, but his hyper-aware instincts screamed 'threat!' at the very implications of her words. "Really, it's the only payment that would have sufficed for such a large wish. Finding one's self is a very important task... and of course, the payment must be equal to the service."

"I see." And he did. A zanpakuto lost to a shinigami was really equal only to itself, especially for those who had managed to communicate with their swords.

"Indeed." Yuuko sipped her tea.

"Great, now we know why the witch-lady didn't help Toshiro when she had the chance," Ichigo said, completely destroying whatever mood that had been there before. "Can we go home now?"

"How do we go home, anyway?" Renji asked.

Toshiro turned to his rescue group. "You mean NONE OF YOU know how to get home?"

"It was Ichigo's job!" Matsumoto objected. "I mean, it's not like he was much help looking for you!"

"What? It was Renji's job! You guys dragged me along!"

"Then you should have pulled your own weight!" Renji rejoined, trying to catch Ichigo in a headlock.

"I DID pull my own weight! You guys are completely lost about everything in the real world!"

Willing the bickering to fade into the background, Toshiro turned back to the space-time witch. "You know the way for us to get home, don't you," he said. It wasn't a question.

Yuuko smiled over her teacup.

"I'll tell you where Watanuki hid the booze."

LINE BREAK

"Taicho," Matsumoto said after they had squeezed through slats in a fence to get back to the forests of Soul Society, "What happened? I mean, who took you? Why?"

Toshiro remained silent for so long, Matsumoto started to fear that she had asked a question that her captain didn't want to answer. She was about to tell him to forget it when he spoke.

"She never said, but..." he trailed off, carefully not looking at Matsumoto as he spoke, "I think that Aizen forced her to." He paused, trying to collect his thoughts. The little captain was obviously tired, Matsumoto suddenly noted. Their first stop once in Seireitei would be to see Unohana-Taicho, or there would be... consequences.

"Aizen was behind the whole thing," he continued, "But I don't think Jorogumo really cared about who I was, just about paying back her debt. And loopholes," he said with a smirk. "From what I know, Jorogumo was in debt to Aizen, who made her pay it back by sealing my memories away and keeping Hyorinmaru from me."

"So how'd you get 'em back?" Renji asked. He and Ichigo had been respectfully letting the two members of the tenth division talk, not eavesdropping. Not at all.

Toshiro shrugged, an unusually juvenile gesture for him. "Like I said, she liked loopholes. Apparently, Aizen never said how long she had to guard Hyorinmaru."

"Nice," Renji grinned.

Ichigo and Matsumoto voiced their agreement before Ichigo asked, "Um, why are we just walking?"

There was an uncomfortable pause; Matsumoto and Renji had been setting their pace to match Hitsugaya-taicho's, since the highest rank set the pace. He would normally have been using flash-step to get to the white walls of the Seireitei, just visible through the trees. Now, though, it was obvious that the small captain was tired, and not just on a physical level. The initial rush that reuniting with Hyorinmaru had brought on was now wearing away, and everyone could sense how low his reiatsu was.

Matsumoto paused. "That's right," she said, eyeing her captain. "We should get back as soon as we can. Reports and all that."

Renji said nothing, realizing that his drinking buddy was up to something. Ichigo wisely followed his lead.

"Not to mention," the fukutaicho continued, "what Unohana-Taicho will do to us if we didn't rush you back there post-haste."

"What are you-" Hitsugaya managed to get out before he was slung over Rangiku's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Let me go!" he protested.

"No chance. Sorry captain, but you know Unohana-Taicho.." she trailed off as the two other members of the group caught up with them.

"Fine, but only because of Unohana-Taicho"

Rangiku smirked, certain that her petulant captain wouldn't be able to see the expression and reprimand her, then set off.

It wasn't very long that their pace brought them up to the village located just outside the wall of the Court of Pure Souls. Their unusual party gathered a small crowd as they paused to get the ok to enter the wall. Fortunately, Hitsugaya-taicho had fallen asleep shortly after they had set off, so he was unconscious for something that would have, without a doubt, embarrassed him as much as Ukatake-taicho giving him candy during a meeting. Perhaps more.

Jidanbo shook as he held the gate open, tears of joy and relief racking his giant frame. He would have been sobbing loudly and hugging his small friend, but Matsumoto had sent Renji ahead to warn him to be quiet. Hopefully, they would be able to get Hitsugaya all the way to the Fourth Division's barracks without him waking up.

It turned out that that wasn't entirely possible. Rangiku's slowed pace woke the captain somewhat when they entered the city, but he only glared drowsily at the familiar white buildings until they were ushered into a hospital room by nervous members of the Fourth division.

They managed to keep him, though not on the bed, at least in the actual room until Unohana-Taicho arrived. She ushered the three taller people out and examined Hitsugaya alone. Prior experience had taught her that the best way to deal with the touchy child captain was to conduct his examinations in private. She realized that this need to keep such things private was most likely driven by a fear of being seen as inferior, though anyone thinking that Hitsugaya was unfit in any way was likely going to be corrected quickly, the possibility of losing respect terrified the white-haired boy.

Since everyone had their own irrational fears, Retsu respected his. She knew, also, that this fear would diminish in time as he grew.

"It's good to see you again, Hitsugaya-taicho," she said once she had closed the door. Hitsugaya only nodded, and she could tell that he was tired. Better get on with making sure he was alright before he nodded off, she decided.

Fortunately, it turned out that nothing was wrong with Toshiro that wouldn't heal in time. She told him that he was to take it easy, and after hearing the story of what the strange spider-spirit had done, she had recommended that he spend time getting re-acquainted with Hyorinmaru. _Through meditation only_ _for the first few weeks_, she had stressed. Working himself to the brink of exhaustion, what was likely his first instinct, would do more harm than good in the long run.

After insisting on the _importance of taking it easy and returning for regular checkups_ Retsu let the tired Toshiro go, with orders to Rangiku-san to _take him immediately back to his lodgings_ and to _make sure he sleeps_. She watched the group leave with a smile, knowing her orders would be obeyed.

LINE BREAK

Rangiku's first instinct was to make sure everybody knew that the captain was back.

Correction: Rangiku's first instinct was to obey Unohana-taicho's orders, _then_ make sure everybody knew the captain was back. Half the job was being done already thanks to Renji and his half of the reporting and the paperwork, but Rangiku had a very special stop to make once she had the captain all settled in. It wasn't exactly on the official itinerary of places she had to go, but there was no way she'd let this person be the last to know- forgotten in the hubbub of bureaucracy.

"Hinamori-chan?" she called.

There was a surprised clatter from inside and a rushing of footsteps before the door slid open to reveal the thin face of Hinamori Momo. She had looked horrible before Rangiku had left, losing what little weight she had rapidly, and it looked like the trend hadn't stopped while the small group had been away. The hope, though, the hope that brought a light to the girl's eyes was something that brought life, painful, wonderful life back to the empty face.

"Rangiku-san! You're back!" she launched herself at her fellow vice-captain, wrapping her arms around Rangiku's waste. "Did you find him?"

Rangiku returned the hug. "Yes, yes we did." There was a happy gasp that turned into a sob and soon the girl was sobbing openly in the older woman's arms. "There, there," Rangiku said. "He's alright, he's fine, and so are you."

"I-I wa-w-was so wo-r-ried! He disa-p-pierd!"

"I know. He'll be very happy to see you again once he wakes up. Unohana-Taicho ordered him to go to bed, but I know he'll want some tea when he wakes up, and I have a _ton_ of paperwork to do," Rangiku sighed. "How could I possibility get my captain his tea? If only there was _someone_ I could trust to make tea the way Taicho likes it..."

Momo giggled a watery giggle into Rangiku's sleeve. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

LINE BREAK

A short closing chapter, but I think that stopping there is probably the safest point. Any more and I might feel compelled to continue, and then this chapter would never be finished; stuck in the limbo of my mind.

Thank you for sticking with this story, and thank you for all the favorites and alerts. The ones that kept coming, especially the ones that kept coming months after I stopped updating really inspired me to go back to this and finish it. Thank you again for all who wanted the closing chapter. This wouldn't have happened without you.

As a special bonus, I present a deleted scene/blooper!

"My next question is: who is Hyorinmaru, and what is a zanpakuto?"

That question seemed to shock them. Both Matsumoto and Renji started. "Geez," Renji muttered, "I know he can't remember his name, but this is just..."

"This is a zanpakuto," Matsumoto said, holding up her sword. "Mine is Haineko. Renji's is Zabimaru. Yours is Hyorinmaru."

Hitsugaya gave the shinigami a blank look. "You guys name your swords?"

"HA!" Ichigo shouted. "I'm not the only one who thinks it sounds weird!"

Thank you all, again, for all the favs, alerts, and especially the reviews!


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